Walter McGee
Design Check Engineer
Raytheon Space & Airborne Systems

Walter McGee is a Generalist with extensive experience in Design Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality Assurance and Industrial Education. He has held membership in numerous ASME standards committees and is an internationally recognized Dimensional Metrologist. He is the Father of ASME's certification program on ASME Y14.5.

Since 2008, he has been assigned to the Engineering Product Integrity Center (EPIC) at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems Division in El Segundo. For the past several years he has challenged the adequacy of contemporary Quality Assurance systems. He believes that design quality is the missing link in America's quest for true total quality assurance and that the lack of document quality is the chief contributing cause for the faltering of our nation's economic competitiveness.

PRESENTATION: Total Quality Management is NOT Total!
"You must first design quality-in!" In this the great quality pundits admitted that their quality management theories were based on the premise that the engineering requirements exhibited on drawings were assumed to be valid data for statistical use. Yet, neither the gurus nor any contemporary intellection on quality assurance covered the subject of design quality as part of a quality assurance "system."
 
The great quality pundits’ contributions in adding statistics to the qualification processes were enormous but they were neither design engineers, nor, unfortunately, did they have any idea of the magnitude of deficiencies within our nation's design engineering departments.
 
How can quality be truly assured if their statistical data is not likewise assured to be based on good engineering drawings? Assumptions are not sufficient in design any more than in manufacturing. The author advocates the holding of design engineers accountable to a design inspection process much in the same way as manufacturers are held accountable to a mechanical inspection process.
 
The author offers insights as to how this design quality system may be implemented. And he presents evidence that will attest to his claims of the inferiority of industrial design documents.
 
We are in a dark hour of our economy. Now is the time to fill-in the missing component of a true Total Quality Management System. This paper on Design Quality Management presents the theory of management for American industry that will raise up our nation’s competitive posture to past glory. This will surly qualify it someday to be admitted into the family of organizational functions associated with Total Quality Management!