It's time... Jamaica!: JAMAICA | How to skyrocket into the 21st century?

Improving Quality into the 21st century.

On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger launched from Cape Canaveral and was lost due to an explosion; the entire crew of seven were killed. Prior to this event, the space shuttle Challenger pioneers had completed numerous space missions. NASA suspended shuttle flights for two years while a complete investigation was underway.

This mission became highly publicized as it took on a new dimension; it was the first time a school teacher was allowed to take part as a crew member to travel in space. Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher from New Hampshire, was to be the first civilian in space. She was selected as the best candidate to represent a class of 11,000 applicants as NASA's best teacher in-space contest.

In June 1986, a commission reported that the Challenger accident was caused by a failure of O-rings in the shuttle's right solid rocket booster. The shuttle is comprised of over two million parts, but it was the rubber O-ring seal that ultimately failed. "It was determined that design flaws, along with the unusually cold weather conditions on a January launch, caused the O-ring seal to leak through the booster joint. Flames from within the booster pressured past the failed seal and quickly expanded the small hole. The flaming gasses then burned a hole in the shuttle's external fuel tank. The flames also cut through the supporting beams that held the booster to the side of the external tank. The booster tore loose and ruptured the tank". The rapidly expanding propellant gasses from the external tank formed a giant fireball that blew the Challenger vehicle apart.

This tragic event has already been etched indelibly in the minds of all those who witnessed the Challenger disaster. The space shuttle is comprised of many parts, but it took only one O-ring seal to cause a disaster. Let this be the ultimate lesson, we should accept the highest quality specification to be our standard, as it takes only one failure to create any disaster; a disaster which could have huge irreversible consequences to human and material capital.

Standards up! Quality up!
Means lower margins for error.

As a result of the Challenger disaster, designers made over 200 technical blueprint and scientific modifications to the existing and stringent NASA Quality Control Program, to include the Challenger improved O-ring design, a crew bail-out system, improved policies, and procedural changes which included more restrictive launching conditions for future space missions.

Note: Thousands of jobs were cut or left in limbo while the Challenger space program was under scrutiny. Please note also: Our lives and livelihoods become more 'predictable' as the result of having 'dependable' quality products or services. Added, we never seem to have the time to do it right the first time, but we always seem to have more time and money to do it over and over again. Why is that?

We should take full notice!
Total Quality is Zero Tolerance
for Waste: this means less COST!

Today, Jamaica is on a launch pad ready to rapidly boost change, and 'change we must' if Jamaica is ready, to take on the challenges of the 21st-century. Jamaica has already marked her countdown for lift-off. The trajectory, rate of ascent, telemetry, limits, and margins for error are all based on established quality standards. New standards in place heighten our trajectory upwards. Formulating new and improved policies, procedures, guidelines, training, blueprints, templates, codes, rules, laws, and regulations govern our path. Errors and delays, however minor, can have a detrimental consequence to our livelihoods.

The loss of Challenger has not overshadowed the legacy of NASA, as NASA's systematic approach, is to rapidly, simultaneously, and continuously make giant leaps to higher quality standards through NASA's Quality Control Program.

NASA has zero-tolerance for losses or failures. Jamaica, on the other hand, is at the crossroads to many modifications to boost our real-world challenges; this shadow is following us, as the systematic Quality Control standards we write and more importantly follow will give us better overall Quality Assurance; this reliability in performance, and our own place in history.

Greater predictability can be given
with greater quality.

Synopsis: At the heart of NASA is a defined Quality Control Program of compliance and acceptance to safely launch rockets on-time. Today's acceptance level of Total Quality should not be tomorrow's, as improvement must be continuously and simultaneously made to control shortfalls/losses to limit fraud, abuse, delays, defects, and errors (factors that can create much systemic waste).

Noteworthy: It took less than 70 years from the 1903 Wright Brothers' first powered flight to a man on the moon. If NASA is to skyrocket to new frontiers; to Mars and beyond, it will require exponential levels of quality compliance and acceptance. Likewise, if Jamaica is ready to accept all new 21st century challenges, all enterprises should be guided by Quality Control Programs that can be oriented to control shortfalls/losses to limit fraud, abuse, delays, defects, and errors (factors that can create much systemic waste).

What is a Quality Control Program and why is a defined Quality Control Program important? A Quality Control Program is managed information through audits that can be oriented to control shortfalls/losses from fraud, abuse, delays, defects, and errors (factors that can create much systemic waste).

Quality Control (QC) is a procedure or a set of procedures (quality checks through every step, start to finish, in any Total Quality scheme) intended to ensure that a performed service or manufactured product adheres to a defined set of quality standards.

Quality Assurance (QA) is defined as a procedure or set of procedures intended to ensure (before work is complete, as opposed to afterward) that a product or service during development meets or exceeds specified quality standards.

Change your trajectory,

~ @ a 21st-Century Vision.

Advance >