ASQ Washington Update: A Productive Week

WASHINGTON, DC — ASQ began its “fall session” of Washington activities with meetings September 13 and 14 highlighting growth in U.S. manufacturing quality, innovation initiatives and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

On the innovation front, Senate staff members issued a challenge to ASQ members: to inform themselves about The National Competitiveness Investment Act, a new bill that is about to be introduced in the Senate, and to let their voices be heard in their senators’ offices this month.

Hammered out during the Washington summer months in a bipartisan effort – which included the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee – the bill is aimed at spurring investment in science and technology education programs, and in programs focused on engineering, science and math training at all levels of U.S. education. The bill also would establish a President’s Council on Innovation and Competitiveness, seek ways to support the emerging discipline of service science, and further other initiatives of interest to ASQ members.

The bill is expected for debate on the Senate floor in September, according to Jason Mulvihill, staff director of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, as well as legislative assistants to Sens. George Allen (R-Virginia), and John Ensign (R-Nevada), who were among the many staffers meeting with ASQ this week.

In recent weeks, ASQ leaders in the Service Quality Division, Quality Management Division, Statistics Division and Measurement Quality Division have been working to identify ASQ members who are willing and able to provide input to the Senate on aspects of this developing legislation.  Specifically, ASQ is looking to offer guidance on two subjects taken up by the bill:

• The establishment of program-evaluation metrics to assess the efficacy of initiatives undertaken as part of the legislation.
• A study of the emerging discipline of service science.

ASQ’s representatives also met with several House and Senate staff members about lifting the “category cap” that is now part of the Baldrige award legislation. Current law, established in 1998, sets a limit of three recipients per award category (manufacturing, small business, service, etc.). ASQ and Baldrige supporters want to eliminate the per-category cap, and instead limit award recipients in all categories combined to a maximum of 15 per year.

For more information on these matters and other ASQ advocacy activities, please contact John Ryan, ASQ public policy analyst, at jryan@asq.org.