FALL 2014

14 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

14 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK Laurence Claus Laurence Claus is the President of NNi Training and Consulting, Inc. He has 25 years of experience with a medium sized automotive fastener manufacturer, holding positions including Vice President of Engineering, General Manager, Director of Quality, Director of New Business Development, and Applications Engineer. In 2012, he formed NNi to pass on his knowledge and experience to others in the fastener and automotive supplier industries. In addition to technical and business training courses, he does technical consulting and expert witness and consultation work. He can be reached at 847-867-7363 or Lclaus@NNiTraining.com. You can learn more about NNi at www.NNiTraining.com. WHY A FORMAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM MAKES GOOD BUSINESS SENSE On a cold night in April 1912 one of the world’s most enigmatic disasters unfolded, the sinking of what The White Star Line dubbed as the “unsinkable” ship, the RMS Titanic. Like many such events, discrepancies in eyewitness accounts, the passage of time, and the lack of hard evidence, has led to multiple theories and ideas over the years about what really happened. Suffice it to say though, the most likely explanation is that no one thing was responsible but rather many “small” things came together in the “perfect storm”. This cavalcade of events conspired against the passengers and crew on that fateful night to sink the “unsinkable” ship and seal its place in history as one of the all-time worst maritime accidents. Although a hundred years later, we’re still searching for answers and one of the recent and more plausible theories that has been proposed has to do with, of all things, the quality of rivets used in the bow. At the turn of the century, state-of-the art technology had ships using steel rivets instead of the traditional iron ones because of their strength. Unfortunately, both the bow and stern sections of the Titanic used iron instead of steel rivets because of installation challenges of steel rivets in these areas. Samples of these rivets, recovered from the wreck have been shown to contain significant amounts of slag, an unwanted residual product from the smelting process. In fact, the Titanic rivets were discovered to have quantities 3 times higher the than the normal accepted levels of this impurity. This was most likely because the shipbuilders, Harlan and Wolff, were at the time simultaneously constructing the world’s three largest ships; Titanic, Olympic, and Britannic. Because of the heavy demand for rivets, the Titanic alone required over three million, a supply shortage of rivets and skilled riveters ensued. As a result, the shipyard was periodically in a bind and made a decision to purchase #3 Bar, a substandard wrought iron quality rather than the normally specified and purchased #4 Bar, and to use new, smaller, and not thoroughly vetted suppliers. It is believed that these substandard and weaker iron rivets failed when Titanic hit the iceberg opening up several seams in the hull plates which ultimately lead to its sinking. So at this point one might ask what this compelling tale has to do with today’s Quality Management Systems (QMS). The answer is quite simple. Although this technology did not exist in 1912, if Harland and Wolff had one of today’s formal Quality Management Systems, or if The White Star Line had required their vendors to have such systems, it is likely that procedures would have been inplace to challenge and perhaps even prevent the decision to purchase inferior quality rivets. This is not to suggest that such a change would have prevented this specific chain of events and ultimate disaster, but it’s certainly a romantic notion to contemplate and sets the stage for reflecting on the question about why today’s Quality Management Systems are smart business for members of the fastener supply chain. please turn to page 150