Headquartered in the former Gimbels Department Store building in downtown Milwaukee, the American Society for Quality (known as ASQ) is a professional association for over 75,000 quality assurance and quality control professionals.[1] As of 2016, the Society had 239 sections worldwide and 185 employees.[2] ASQ offers professional certifications, maintains the world’s largest quality-related publisher, and administers awards, including the United States Department of Commerce’s Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award.[3]
ASQ arose from the World War II push for industrial standardization. Wartime training courses in quality control methods brought together statisticians from war production industries.[4] Desiring to develop and share best practices, these professionals founded a journal, Industrial Quality Control, and began calling for a national quality control association.[5] On February 16, 1946, seventeen regional societies and an additional twenty professionals joined together as the American Society for Quality Control.[6] The Milwaukee Society for Quality Control, formed in 1945, was among these founding societies.[7]
Milwaukeeans were prominent in the leadership of the American Society for Quality Control and Industrial Quality Control during the 1950s.[8] As membership grew, the Society consolidated its business operations in Milwaukee in 1956.[9] As part of the consolidation, the Society hired an Administrative Secretary to oversee the daily affairs that had become too numerous for the elected leadership.[10]
Since the 1980s, the Society’s membership has expanded to include both industrial and nonindustrial quality professionals.[11] Between 1980 and 1989, the Society’s membership doubled from 35,000 to nearly 70,000.[12] In recognition of its broader focus, the Society removed “Control” from its name in 1997.[13]
Footnotes [+]
- ^ ASQ Fact Sheet, American Society for Quality website accessed June 2, 2016; “About ASQ: The ASQ Timeline,” American Society for Quality website, accessed June 2, 2016.
- ^ ASQ Fact Sheet.
- ^ ASQ Fact Sheet; “Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award (MBNQA),” American Society for Quality website, accessed June 7, 2016.
- ^ Charles H. Wing, “Message from the President,” Industrial Quality Control 1, no. 1 (July 1944): 2.
- ^ Wing, “Message from the President,”; “National Organization,” Industrial Quality Control 1, no. 3 (November 1944): 2.
- ^ “American Society for Quality Control,” Industrial Quality Control 2, no. 5 (March 1946): 3.
- ^ “Milwaukee Society for Quality Control,” Industrial Quality Control 2, no. 5 (March 1946): 18; “Initial Board of Directors Completed,” Industrial Quality Control 2, no. 6 (May 1946): 31.
- ^ “Annual Report of the Board of Directors,” Industrial Quality Control 13, no. 3 (September 1956): 12, 19-21; “Business Manager for Industrial Quality Control Appointed,” Industrial Quality Control 7, no. 1 (July 1950): 44.
- ^ “A New Headquarters,” Industrial Quality Control 12, no. 7 (January 1956): 39.
- ^ “About ASQ: The ASQ Timeline.”
- ^ Dave Beal, “The Boom in Quality Control,” Milwaukee Journal, July 1, 1980.
- ^ Beal, “The Boom in Quality Control”; Erik Gunn, “Quest for Quality Creates a Market,” Milwaukee Journal, November 5, 1989.
- ^ Peter Merrill, “A Brief History of Quality,” Quality Progress 48, no. 5 (May 2015): 42-44.
For Further Reading
“American Society for Quality Control.” Industrial Quality Control 2, no. 5 (March 1946): 3-7.
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