SQT Blog

We are delighted to bring you two free webinars from Antaris Consulting.  Antaris provide SQT’s Quality, Health & Safety, Environment & Energy Training courses.

 1.      Can the threat of adverse publicity motivate companies to achieve legal compliance?

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/1890875576166800384

This webinar explores the question ‘Have adverse publicity orders lead to more effective regulatory compliance?’  You will have the opportunity to learn about current trends in multi-jurisdictional compliance and hear from one of our senior consultants, Cheryl Robertson. Cheryl has previously worked in the oil and gas industry in Environment and Health & Safety. Cheryl is a senior consultant with Antaris, with over ten years’ experience in the field of consulting, specialising in Environmental Management and Integrated Management Systems with Environment, Health & Safety and Quality.

2.      Delivering Multi-Jurisdictional Compliance

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/8987522742387711744

This webinar looks at how multi-national companies can overcome the challenges of delivering multi-jurisdictional compliance. This webinar is delivered by Gerard Higgins, the CEO of Antaris Consulting and has over 20 years’ experience in Environment, Health and Safety.

For more information, visit Antaris website

Continuing his series of tips for people implementing Continuous Process Improvement, our tutor Albert Plant writes:

There is a natural tendency for experimenters to hurry to look at the effects graphs, ANOVA’s and other analysis, when they have completed their hard work running experiments, and they may forget to check the residuals. Residuals are unexciting, but contain crucial evidence on the validity of the experimental outcome. I have seen experimenters writing up lengthy reports on the outcome of their experiments, only to discover later that the condition of the residuals indicates that they have drawn incorrect conclusions. For example, an analysis of the residuals may indicate that it is necessary to transform the data to obtain the most appropriate model.

All DOE computer software, such as Minitab, provides extensive analysis of DOE residuals. Design Expert DOE computer software has no less than eleven separate graphs plus additional text output analysing the residuals. Clearly, the people who develop the mathematical tools for us to design and analyse our experiments are in no doubt as to the importance of the residuals in DOE.

Learn more about how design and analyse experiments and how to get the most information from the residuals, by attending our Design of Experiments training courses.

For a Quality/Accreditation Systems and Business Development Manager

We are looking for an enthusiastic and experienced professional to join our dynamic team in Limerick. The position is permanent. If you are interested, please contact Siobhan:
scunningham@sqt.ie
Tel 061-339040

Key Responsibilities:

1. Develop, audit and manage all aspects of the Quality Management System to ensure it effectively meets the needs of all stakeholders.

2. Develop, monitor and manage QQI (HETAC/FETAC), NEBOSH and other programme and institutional accreditations and the associated relationships.

3. Innovation of new Training programmes and the identification of new markets (locally and internationally) to ensure our continued growth as a high quality training provider.

4. Drive the research and development of Online and Blended learning programmes in association with tutors, to meet present and future customer needs.

5. Ownership of the Tender process.

6. Ensure course brochures and website course content accurately reflect our continuously developing course programmes.

7. Public relations/public awareness responsibilities.

Education, Experience & Skills:

· Third level Degree in Science/Engineering/Technology or suitable equivalent

· 8 years’ experience in a training or education environment, with direct management experience in a QA environment (preferably Academic QA & Accreditation)

· Experience of online /eLearning environment and new course development

· Excellent Communications (oral and written) and problem solving skills

· Strong customer focus, Financial awareness, leadership and people management skills

· Experience of online marketing tools will be a distinct advantage

I think that some experimenters believe that you should always be a case for using blocks when designing experiments. This is not so. There will be circumstances when it will be necessary to consider using blocks, but blocking doesn’t come cheaply. For example, four blocks will require three of your precious degrees of freedom, using up three experimental runs. Furthermore, blocking greatly reduces the range of randomization that can be used. In a blocked experiment randomization of runs can only be carried out within the blocks, instead of across the full set of experimental runs, as is the case in an un-blocked experiment.

Blocking can be useful when you are concerned that factors not included in the design may add variability to the design outcome. Such concern may arise, for example, where you need to divide the experimental runs among several operators, or you need to use two or more different pieces of equipment.

Try to avoid the need for blocking by ensuring that the running of the experiments is carried out with minimum changes among the factors not included in the design. For example, try to have the experiments carried out by just one operator; use the same piece of equipment for all runs; use the same piece of measuring equipment for all measurements from all runs, etc.

Learn more about the correct use of blocking designs by attending our Design of Experiments training courses.

Some experimenters believe that you must always include centre points when designing experiments. This is not the case, and in particular, it doesn’t make sense to include centre points when designing screening-type experiments, with large number of factors.

Centre points have an important role in testing for curvature in the appropriate circumstances, but will not provide an aid in the search for factors with significant main and/or interaction effects , which is the main objective when screening.

Centre points can be added to the design, if desired, when we have completed our screening work, and we are contemplating proceeding to optimisation using Response Surface Methodology (RSM).

I sometimes see people including a single centre point when designing screening experiments. This makes no sense. A single centre point is completely useless and is simply a wasted experimental run.

There is a view among some experimenters that adding centre points gives you a three-level design. This is not the case. Centre points are located at the centre of the design space and have no role in determining effects of the factors at the middle value of the factor levels.

Learn more about the correct use of centre points by attending our Design of Experiments courses. We present two Design of Experiments courses; a three day Design of Experiments on both a public and in-house basis and a six day Design of Experiments for R&D on an in-house basis.

Lean Tutor required with experience in the Manufacturing Sector. Lean experience in the Services sector and a qualification as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt would be advantageous.

Please contact Éamon O’Bearra on 087 267 0480 or email eamonobearra@asst.ie

Some experimenters are of the view that it is always necessary to replicate designs in order to test for significant effects. As a consequence, some experimenters will replicate fractional factorial designs. This doesn’t make sense.

Consider the case of a quarter fraction, 2-level design of 6 factors in 16 runs. There is considerable aliasing among the two factor interactions, about which we will be concerned. See the alias structure here reproduced from Minitab:

Alias Structure

I + ABCE + ADEF + BCDF

A + BCE + DEF + ABCDF
B + ACE + CDF + ABDEF
C + ABE + BDF + ACDEF
D + AEF + BCF + ABCDE
E + ABC + ADF + BCDEF
F + ADE + BCD + ABCEF
AB + CE + ACDF + BDEF
AC + BE + ABDF + CDEF
AD + EF + ABCF + BCDE
AE + BC + DF + ABCDEF
AF + DE + ABCD + BCEF
BD + CF + ABEF + ACDE
BF + CD + ABDE + ACEF
ABD + ACF + BEF + CDE
ABF + ACD + BDE + CEF

Replicating this design will require 32 runs, but the additional 16 runs won’t assist in breaking up the aliases among the two factor interactions. After the replication we will have a more powerful test for significance of effects, but we will continue to have the same degree of aliasing as before the replication. Instead, if there are resources available for 32 runs, it makes much more sense to use the 32 runs to design a half fraction, in which, in this particular case, there won’t be aliasing among the two factor interactions. The power to test for significant effects will be much the same as that achieved from the replicate on the quarter fraction, because the additional insignificant effects that are likely to be produced using a half fractions can be converted to sums of squares, and will perform much the same role as the replicate on the quarter fraction. That is; you will have much the same ability to detect significant effects, while avoiding aliasing among the two factor interactions, for the same 32 experimental runs.

Learn more about the correct use of fractional designs by attending our Design of Experiments courses. The next public Design of Experiments course is a three day course scheduled for 5th – 7th June in Dublin. This course can also be run on an in-house basis. We also have a six day Design of Experiments for R&D course. The latter is run as an in-house course.

As allergen control is identified as one of the 10 fundamental clauses of the BRC Global Food Safety standard, FBOs, (Food Business Operators), need to have a structured approach to managing allergens within their operation.

A practical way of ensuring that your allergen management programme is fit for purpose is to ensure compliance with the 10 point allergen improvement plan.

1 Allergen policy As allergens are 1 of the 4 food safety hazards, companies need to develop an allergen policy to demonstrate their commitment to legal compliance.

2 Risk Assessment As all contempoary Food Safety standards are based on risk assessment, each manufacturing process step needs to be risk assessed for the potential of allergen x contamination.

3 Supplier Management As a significance number of allergen x contamination incidents occur off site at supplier locations, suppliers must be risk assessed for the potential of allergen x contamination.

4 Recipe/Spec Control All manufacturing recipes and other product specs need to address allergen content to ensure that required information is shared between businesses in the food chain.

5 Labeling Review All finished product labels must be validated prior to use to ensure that they comply with all relevant Labellling legislation, ref Commission Directive 2007/68/EC annex 111A.

6 Operational Control All risk assessment evaluations undertaken by the food safety team must be transferred to factory floor manufacturing operations to ensure the relevant knowledge is in place.

7 Cleaning Validation All cleaning operations which historically focussed on the elimination of microbiological, biological and chemical hazards need to be re-validated to ensure the same procedures are capable of eliminating allergenic hazards.

8 Employee Training All staff, via induction training or specific on-the-job training, need to be made aware of the allergen risks in the manufacturing environment.

9 Change Control/Change-Over When allergenic and non-allergenic materials are processed on the same manufacturing equipment, change over procedures need to be formalised to ensure x contamination does not occur and the correct label is applied to the new manufacturing product.

10 Consumer Data FBOs, in an effort to demonstrate due diligence, need to investigate all possible means, (product labeliing, product websites), to inform consumers of the risks associated with products being produced.

If this 10 point allergen improvement plan is followed by food businesses, they can demonstrate that they are taking a structured and logical approach to allergen management.

Our next public Food Allergen Control training course takes place on 23rd April in Dublin

Setting calibration intervals is probably the most important decision to be made by those personnel with responsibility for the calibration system; the length of interval will influence the effectiveness of the calibration operations, and will have a considerable effect on the cost of the calibration process.

When I ask people about the sources of information used to make decisions on their calibration intervals, I get a variety of answers, including some which must be seriously questioned as to their validity and usefulness, such as:

I am not saying you should ignore these sources of advice. However, with the possible and rare exception of the manufacturer of very specialised and unique measuring instruments, these external agencies are not in any position to advise you, and especially not to dictate to you, on your calibration intervals.

The intervals should be based on internal sources of information such as calibration histories, frequency and type of use of the instrument, the technical experience of your own company personnel, etc. This information is not generally available to the external agencies mentioned above, so they are not in a position to specify your calibration intervals.

Learn more about the setting of calibration intervals by attending our Calibration training course. The next scheduled date is 12th March in Dublin.

Leadership is such an interesting field of study and one which has intrigued philosophers, business giants and politicians amongst others for generations. There has been much written about these leadership qualities and what makes a leader one which engenders willing followers who share and actively engage in the vision and purpose of the organisation .

The one constant in many of the different insights and definitions of leadership quality is the importance of conscious awareness of who I am and how I am around those I work with. The understanding and importance of this has been widely supported over the last number of years through the work of many different modern writers such as Daniel Goldman’s Emotional Intelligence theory to Stephen Coveys 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

However the notion of conscious awareness of ourselves dates much further back to philosopher Socrates whose life was dedicated to” Knowing Thyself” and living an examined life; to the works of Shakespeare that constantly explored the truth in who we are through his plays and writings. He gave us the insight “to thine own self be true”.

While these are deep questions and widely known thoughts, they are also constant reminders that the privilege of leading others is not a superficial undertaking – the learning from which, for the individual leader can be both immensely rewarding and stretching.

Life and circumstances provide us with opportunities to examine how we approach our interactions with the people we work with and therein how to be more effective in what we do.

In our programmes Gina and I invite personal and group reflection on the question of our own self-awareness as leaders. We encourage people to safely step into the space of what we know about ourselves in the context of how we are with those we interact with and to examine what this tells us about ourselves. It is constantly amazing and a privilege for us to experience our learners embracing this exercise and to witness the reflection it invokes.

Self-awareness is not a one day a year event, and the invitation and challenges are to each day consider the effects of our actions and our way of being on others we lead and interact with. The truth is we will are never far from the receiving end of this, as we typically always get back what we put out. The key is to know this, watch for it and ask ourselves is this serving us and the original purpose we started out with; for ourselves, the people we lead, and the Organisation we serve and represent.

Maire Murphy and Gina Ryan are Trainer/Facilitators for SQT’s Leadership and Personal Development training courses. Maire and Gina also offer One to One or Group Coaching and DiSC Profiling as an additional Self-Awareness tools.