Interview #6 – Pam Schodt

Posted on by jimecalfa
The QIC – Quality Interview Chain is growing! My pleasure to present today Pam Schodt, Certified Quality Engineer with more than 10 years of experience in supervision, corporate communications, customer service, handling quality complaints, and marketing. Enjoy and learn from her experience. 

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* YOURSELF / OCCUPATION: Who are you and what you do? 

I’m Pam Schodt, a certified Quality Engineer, and member of the Raleigh, North Carolina, Chapter of ASQ. I coordinate Eventbrite sites and social media for chapter events. Currently, I’m not working for a company, but I’m about to complete the most important project ever: I’ve been raising twin sons and they will be entering college in August! 

* CHALLENGES: What was the biggest challenge you faced in your job and how did you handle it?

One exciting challenge in my job with Burlington Knits arose with a yarn supplier. There’s a condition called immature cotton. It’s caused by weather conditions during the cotton plant’s growth and makes the cotton dye resistant. Light colors and whites look normal, but medium and dark colors have white specs. The challenge is that this is an invisible problem until the fabric is manufactured and dyed. We had just started production on a huge fabric program for an upscale retailer. Royal blue fabrics were sprinkled with white specs. My quality service team and I stopped production so we could trace suspect supplier yarns through our fabric lots. Suspect yarns/fabrics were rerouted into light and white colors. “Safer” fabric lots were routed into the medium and dark colors. Ultimately, we still lost some production because of excessive defects, but the loss was minimized by backtracking yarn sources. 

It took a tremendous amount of supplier production research and coordination with manufacturing logistics.

* CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and improve as a professional and/or as a person? 

I consider myself a lifelong learner. The Raleigh Chapter of ASQ schedules tours, workshops, and speakers for professional growth. In May they hold a conference with workshops that I plan on attending. I’m also a regular viewer of the ASQ Standards Channel videos and ASQ webcasts. The Raleigh-Durham area has several biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms so I took continuing education classes in Biotech and cGMP. A few years ago I earned a certificate in Web Technology. I’ve taken many courses in social media, e-publishing, and web content writing. Currently, I’m taking a course to update my Microsoft Office skills and to become more familiar with Windows 8. 

* QUALITY QUOTE: Which is your favorite quality quote?

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking” by Henry Ford

* FREE TIME: In your free time, what do you like to do to relax? 

In my free time, I like to enjoy nature. I spend a lot of time outdoors taking photos and gardening. 
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Connect with Pam Schodt on:

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Thank you so much PAM SCHODT for being part of this project. I appreciate your time and effort!

Interview #5 – Carlos De Castro

Posted on by jimecalfa
A new link to the QIC – Quality Interview Chain. Let’s meet Carlos De Castro, a Quality and Continuous improvement Director who assures that, in order to be a successful quality leader you have to remember among other things, that “customers don’t buy things but buy solutions to their needs”. Enjoy his interview!

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* YOURSELF / OCCUPATION: Who are you and what you do? 

carlosdecastro
My name is Carlos de Castro and I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. My professional trajectory happened through different industries and countries: I started in quality control and inspection, then became plant quality manager in a small factory of Invensys, moved to the automotive quality with ZF Group in Germany. Went for 11 years with Philips in different quality positions and recently joined Novelis, the world leader in rolled aluminium products, delivering high quality alloys to the beverage cans, automotive, architecture and consumer electronics industries. 

* CHALLENGES: What was the biggest challenge you faced in your job and how did you handle it?

During last years I’ve realized there are actually three elements imposing a big challenge for quality leaders. 
The first is People. I have worked in many different countries and managed people located in various locations, such as factories in China, supply center in Hong Kong, or R&D facilities in Singapore. Understanding the drivers that lead to engagement and motivation in all those different places was always a challenge but fundamental to obtain effective team collaboration and results. To reach engagement at individual level, I have learned the importance of making people accountable, identifying owners with a face and name, and then connecting them together. 
The second is Strategy. It starts by understanding that customers don’t buy things but buy solutions to their needs, so we must find out what problems people are trying to solve or what needs they are trying to satisfy. Without a good product and service, there is no business success and to achieve those we need to place the customer high in the vision and drive the right mindset. 
The third is Execution. Without focus on execution, the best strategy would fail terribly. I experienced success and also failure depending on how the vision & strategy were deployed to the people in charge of making it happen. Without dialogue, clarity, targets and follow-up, programs went through the sink without people feeling accountable for the implementation.

* CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and improve as a professional and/or as a person?

I keep my eyes and mind open to learn. As a friend likes to say: “life is constantly teaching me”. This is valid for both professional and personal aspects of life. Our journey is full of incidents along the way and to progress we must learn with the incidents and avoid incurring on the same mistakes. But if we don’t experiment and try there will be no learning. Therefore, in all aspects of life, be open, experiment, try, learn from it, and keep going.

* QUALITY QUOTE: Which is your favorite quality quote?

“Organizations are like automobiles. They don’t run themselves, except downhill” by Prof. Manfred Kets de Vries

* MOTIVATION / PASSION: What motivates you to do what you do? What are you truly passionate about?

I am passionate about people and how to enable people to unlock their full potential. I am an advocate that tools and methods don’t change an organization, you need to work on people’s behaviors and attitudes.

* ADVICE / RECOMMENDATION: What advice would you pass along to others taking the same path as you? Any specific books/blogs/authors you would recommend?

  1. If you’re in Manufacturing, read “Workplace Management” by Taiichi Ohno. 
  2. If you’re in leadership positions, read Manfred Kets de Vries.
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#1 Link: Mr. Ronny Schepmans – strong passionate for quality and advocate of continuous problem solving
#2 Link: Mr. Hans Van Beek – an inspiring leader on excellence and continuous improvement, had thought me a lot years ago

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Connect with Carlos De Castro on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Thank you very much CARLOS DE CASTRO for being part of this project and sharing your experiences. I appreciate it.