Editor’s Corner

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

As I wrote in my previous Corner, the Supplier Conference that I helped organize and attend in Houston during the first week of March 2026 was overall well received and successful. The second one takes place during the last week of April in Birmingham, U.K.

That said, despite the positive outcome, the organizing committee continues its work . . . not just in general on the second conference, but also on improving upon the results of first conference.

During the Houston conference, all participants were asked to provide feedback about the event, both positive and negative. At the end of the conference on Day 2, all the Siemens Energy employees present gathered in a meeting room at the hotel where we compiled and reviewed all the participants’ feedback; SE employees were also encouraged to provide their own feedback. Although they were mainly positive, we took particular notice of the negative critiques. During the time between the two conferences, the organizing committee has worked to address these negatives, in order to assure a better experience and outcome for the second conference.

Sounds like continuous improvement, doesn’t it? Don’t you just love Quality.

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

As I had written in my February Corner, the first of two supplier conferences organized for the aeroderivative gas turbine (AGT) business sector of Siemens Energy Canada took place from March 3-4, 2026 in Houston, Texas. It was a great experience to be there, not only representing the committee who helped organize the conference, but also meeting representatives of many key North American suppliers to our business.

The conference took place at the Marriott West Loop by the Galleria, and the hotel as well as our co-organizers rockitfish went above and beyond to assure that the event went off smoothly. The two days were filled with presentations from Siemens Energy representatives, but also included plenty of opportunities for suppliers to ask questions and interact with company representatives, both during presentations as well as pre-established breakout sessions.

On the first night, an awards dinner was organized where four suppliers were given formal recognition for their contributions and achievements. Two of the four suppliers happened to be suppliers that I had actually worked with/audited in the past, so it was very fulfilling to see them not only getting their awards, but also knowing that they had continued to be valuable suppliers to our business.

The conference also gave me the opportunity to do something I had not done since 2019, which was travel to the United States. Although I would have preferred doing it under a more tolerable political climate, I am ultimately glad that I did go. That said, I am sure I will have a calmer experience with the April conference which takes place in Birmingham, U.K.

Here are a few pictures that I took during the conference . . . 

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

 

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

Since early 2025, I have been part of a work committee tasked with organizing 2 supplier conferences for our company’s aeroderivative gas turbine business sector. The results of the labour will soon be on display, as the first supplier conference will be held over 2 days the first week of March 2026 in the United States, while the second supplier conference will be held  over 2 days the final week of April 2026 in the United Kingdom.

I will be present at both events, and will not only be part of the conference committee to assure that all goes according to plan, but also presenting the Day 2 Safety Moment as well as participating in activities focused on Supplier Quality.

I look forward to writing about these conferences and my experiences in upcoming Editor’s Corner articles.  

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

 

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

Hello, and welcome to 2026. I hope it is a wonderful year for all of you.

Let’s start the year off right with an image meme.

  

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

 

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

The November newsletter is usually where I wish everyone a Happy Holiday season, since it is the final issue of the calendar year. So let’s dispense of that quickly . . . Happy Holidays to all my fellow Quality practitioners. All the best and none of the worst to you in 2026.

And on to our 75th anniversary evening which took place this past October 22, 2025. I was tasked to be one of the official photographers for the evening, so I would like to share some of photos here with you.

A big thank you to everyone who showed up from near and far and made the evening special. I sincerely hope everyone enjoyed themselves and walked away from the evening with a sense of pride at what the ASQ Montreal Section has accomplished for the past 75 years . . . and will continue to accomplish.

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

 

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

As I mentioned previously in my September Corner, this coming October 22nd we will be celebrating the 75th anniversary of the ASQ Montreal section. Hope to see as many members as possible coming out to celebrate this monumental occasion.

Attendance is limited to registered ASQ members only and the space is limited, so don’t hesitate . . . if you have not registered yet, do the Quality thing and sign up.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

 

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

Like all occasions that end with a “0” or a “5”, this coming October 22nd will be no different, as we will be celebrating the 75th anniversary of the ASQ Montreal section. Hope to see as many members as possible coming out to celebrate this monumental occasion.

Perhaps not as monumental, but still significant for myself, this month marks exactly 15 years of me being on the ASQ Montreal Section Leadership Team, as well as 15 years of being the Newsletter Editor.

Fifteen years ago when current Section Chair and then Newsletter Editor Chantale Simard asked me if I would be interested in the role, I was uncertain at first and procrastinated in making a decision. In the end, I took a chance and said YES. That decision to say YES has given me great professional and life experiences, too many to mention here, and I continue in my role because I continue to enjoy doing it.

I do foresee a day when I may have to step aside, but not quite yet. Their is still gas in the tank, as they say.

So thank you to everyone who helps (or has helped) make this newsletter possible 9 times per year. And thank you especially to everyone who reads it. It is much appreciated.

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ALSO . . .  Please contact me or any one else on the Leadership team if you would like to:
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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

 

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

As is customary for me in the June newsletter, I would like to thank you, the reader, for taking the time to read this newsletter. I do hope that the effort that goes into putting it together by myself and many others shows, and that you get something positive out of it every time you read it.

I wish you a safe, happy and QUALITY summer season. We will be back in September 2025 with the next newsletter. All the best to you, and none of the worst.

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ALSO . . .  Please contact me or any one else on the Leadership team if you would like to:
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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

 

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

I want to take my “Corner” opportunity this month to highlight 2 ASQ Montreal in-person events that are coming up in 2025:

1) First off, on June 18th we will hold our latest networking event, a chance for Quality professionals to meet face-to-face and discuss our favourite topic (yes, that one!). Venue still to be determined, so stay tuned.

2) Secondly, our October 22nd event will be ASQ Montreal’s 75th birthday celebration. A milestone achievement thanks to the hard work of more people than I can name. Hopefully you have been reading the monthly newsletter articles being written by J.P. Amiel and Sam Weissfelner regarding the storied history of our section. Again, venue still to be determined, but save the date!

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ALSO . . .  Please contact me or any one else on the Leadership team if you would like to:
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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

 

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

If the 21st century work experience can be defined by one thing, in my humble opinion, that thing would be . . . . E-MAIL.

This simple, Internet-enabled communication tool has completely transformed not only HOW we work, but also WHERE we can work and WHEN we can work. I won’t go into the myriad of examples, but suffice it to say that our Quality of Work, and as a result our Quality of Life, has been drastically affected.

If it’s one thing I have heard on a regular basis from work colleagues over the past 2 decades, it is that they have all at some point or another had difficulty keeping up with e-mails. And often, this is difficulty experienced on a day-to-day basis: it’s one thing to go on vacation for a week, completely disconnect from work, and then come back to hundreds of new e-mails in your Inbox; it’s even worse if you are burdened with hundreds of e-mails after one night’s sleep.

I’ll never forget one particular occasion back in 2012: I went to see a colleague to discuss something relating to project we were both working on. She was talking on the phone so I sat in the chair next to her desk and patiently waited. While waiting, I happened to glance at her computer screen which was open to the Microsoft Outlook, and I happened to notice the number of unread e-mails in her Inbox. That number was 1,066. Forget about hundreds of e-mails, this was 4 digits worth of unread e-mails. My only thought was “Somewhere in those e-mails, a bomb has gone off”.

During the first week of April (specifically March 31 to April 4, 2025), I decided to try an experiment on myself: I set an objective that at the end of each working day, I would try to have ZERO e-mails in my Inbox, both new and read. This would mean focusing almost exclusively on dealing with issues from received e-mails. Also, no working extra hours to make this happen, I would stick to my regular schedule and would also not miss or cancel any meetings.

Did taking this approach improve my Quality of Work? Perhaps even my Quality of Life?

The results:

• Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 0 e-mails in my Inbox at the time of clocking out;
• Wednesday: 6 e-mails in my Inbox at the time of clocking out.

And before you wonder, here are the total e-mails in my Inbox at the start of each day: Monday – 73, Tuesday – 67, Wednesday – 97, Thursday – 45, Friday – 22. Yes, I know, not in the hundreds or thousands (mercifully), but most of those e-mails still have some task(s) behind them, even if it’s just responding to them.

How did it feel working in this manner? One the one hand, I admit it did feel good finishing each day with none to little Inbox e-mails. That said, any work that did not come up as the topic of an e-mail ended up neglected. For example, I have a supplier audit to prepare for and complete in the next few months: did I do any work on that project? Nope, because it never came up in any e-mails during that week, and I can say the same thing for a few other items as well.

So although it felt great at the end of each day knowing that I was slaying the e-mail dragon, I was regularly having guilty feelings that I was not working on certain things and I should not be ignoring them.

Perhaps ultimately since my work is a mix of short and long term projects/issues, I have to find the right balance.

And there is that word . . . BALANCE; you know, from that expression “Work-Life Balance“. More importantly, how good is the Quality of that Balance?

Let’s see what the second week of April brings.

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

 

By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

A rare thing happened during the last week of February 2025.

I was virtually conducting a supplier audit, with yours truly as the Lead Auditor while a colleague of mine was onsite at the supplier in the UK. The audit lasted approximately 2.5 days and covered all the elements of ISO9001, as well as specific requirements put forth by my company to its supply chain.

And in the end, we raised NO findings.

Anyone who conducts audits in the Quality field will know that an audit devoid of any findings/non-conformances is the rarest of species, the proverbial diamond in the rough . . . a very, very, very big rough. But there it was, staring my colleague and I in the face at the end of 2.5 days, and we were both really happy about it.

Truth be told, we did raise 2 observations, which in our company’s audit processes means “you are verging on finding territory, barely a stone’s throw away”, but not a finding. There was also 1 recommendation; in other words “maybe doing this would makes things better, but you can take it or leave”. But no findings.

During the first 10 years of my Quality career, I spent more time being audited than auditing. As a result, I encountered many different types of auditors and auditing styles. My least favourite of these styles was one which I dubbed FTF (Find The Findings); in other words, the auditor is looking for anything and everything that is wrong in order to raise as many findings as possible. In some cases, I was convinced that they must have been “paid by the finding”. I grinned and tolerated it.

When I started a new Quality role in 2007 with Rolls-Royce Canada which would require me to regularly visit and audit suppliers, I believe I subconsciously decided that I would make every effort to not take on the bad habits of the auditors I experienced in the previous 10 years. And this included not succumbing to the FTF style. I started making it a point during opening meetings (and I still do) to say that the goal of the audit is to look and verify for conformance, not non-conformance. In other words, I won’t be specifically going out of my way to look for only mistakes; if one is found, then yes, that has to be documented and the auditee has to respond and correct, but it won’t be the goal of the audit. The goal of any audit should be to verify if the company/system/process/etc. is meeting the intended requirements, and it is up to the auditee to show that that is being done.

So for the audit conducted at the end of February 2025, our goal was to look and verify for conformance, and there was plenty of it. During the closing meeting, the Quality Manager stated that he “thoroughly enjoyed the audit, and appreciated that we worked with them and not against them”. Yes, working together so that both supplier and customer create a positive relationship is key, and being an auditor who only wants to “find the findings” is not how to meet that objective.

Besides, how many times have you heard the words “audit” and “enjoyed” used in the same sentence by an auditee?

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

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By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

Although this picture is from last year’s Super Bowl, it lends itself better to the results of this year’s contest.

My yearly “Quality Image Meme” 🙂

 

 

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

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By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

During the summer of 2024, a colleague of mine at work (Siemens Energy Canada) told me that they were organizing a workshop for the company’s Internal Quality group. Knowing that I am with the ASQ Montreal Section, they asked if it might be possible for someone within ASQ to come and give a Quality-related presentation during the workshop.

After a few discussions, both internally within our Section Leadership Team, as well as with the workshop organizers, our Section Education Chair Dr. David Tozer was present on-site on November 19, 2024 to help kick off the workshop.

As per David’s own words: “The presentation at Siemens Energy Canada, on 19 November, was a success.  The main focus of the presentation was the formation of a quality steering committee, and getting people to work on real issues affecting everyone.  The session was very interactive and some consensus was built on how to proceed.  The event I lead was followed up in the afternoon with more expansion of the way to go.“

I was able to attend the session and some of the pictures I took are below.

In short, it felt good to help organize David’s visit and presentation, as well as see the ASQ Montreal Section contributing to the Quality profession “out in the field”.

   

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

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By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

As usual, November brings to an end our Section’s event activities, as well as Newsletter activities until January of the following year.

So I would like to take this opportunity, as I have in previous November issues of this Newsletter, to wish everyone a joyous holiday season. However you celebrate, I hope it is filled with peace and love.

See you in 2025. 

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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

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By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

On October 2, 2024, I did something for the first time this decade: I visited a supplier to conduct an audit.

In pre-COVID times this was a normal occurence, however since March 2020 any supplier audit I conducted for my employer had to be conducted virtually. Even by 2022 when the world started fully “opening up” again, my immune-compromised being still continued to do these activities remotely; thanks to my understanding managers for agreeing to this.

So what made this audit different that made me decide to go onsite? Two reasons:

1) It’s not 2020, or even 2022, anymore. Even though COVID is still around, I have kept up-to-date on my booster shots. I have also decided that in certain not-so crowded environments, I can forego wearing a mask. So going to this supplier resulted in me not wearing a mask while in the conference room with their staff who were always a fair distance from me; that said, I would put a mask on when going into their shop, where the “employee density” was greater. It’s all about risk management.

2) This supplier is literally walking distance from my office! Seriously, I could have walked their in 20 minutes. So I can only imagine my manager’s reaction if had I said I was going to conduct this audit virtually as well.

In truth, it felt good to finally do a supplier audit onsite again. Yes, doing them virtually does work and plenty can be achieved; but there is something to be said for actually being there and talking to people in person and seeing the facility in the flesh.

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ALSO . . .  Please contact me or any one else on the Leadership team if you would like to:
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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

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By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

Let me take this opportunity to say that I hope everyone had a wonderful summer, and welcome to the fall 2024 season of ASQ newsletters and events.

Was my summer wonderful? Well, I would have definitely preferred not having a recurrence of my lower back issues that had dogged me in the past, but it is what it is.

I have spoken before here about “Quality of Life”: about how we should go beyond our paying jobs in the name of Quality, and expect/demand Quality from our lives in general. Although it is fair to say that my back issues have affected my Quality of Life over the past 4 months, the truth is I have done my best to keep everything in my life going as normal, with some adjustments here and there. It is also worth noting that no one is an island, and although we regularly find ourselves complaining about our healthcare system here in Quebec, I have certainly not been at a loss when it comes to getting the services I have needed.

So for helping me to maintain/improve my Quality of Life in the recent months, I say thank you to all the health practitioners and their staff, I greatly appreciate it.

OK, enough about me. Keep on reading the newsletter and hope to see you at all our future events.

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ALSO . . .  Please contact me or any one else on the Leadership team if you would like to:
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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

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By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB with Rolls-Royce

As is customary for me in the June newsletter, I would like to thank you, the reader, for taking the time to read this newsletter. I do hope that the effort that goes into putting it together by myself and others shows, and that you get something positive out of it every time you read it.

I wish you a safe, happy and QUALITY summer season. We will be back in September 2024 with the next newsletter. All the best to you.

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ALSO . . .  Please contact me or any one else on the Leadership team if you would like to:
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2) Write a review of one of the upcoming monthly webinars for the “Had You Been There” section.

Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.

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