Nuclear 6 Sigma & Quality Half-truth

I've always dealt with lots of quality and process controls. There's no process control like starting up nuclear reactors, and no inspections like ORSE (Operational Reactor Safeguards Exam); but I've also dealt with a number of corporate QMSs (Quality Management System). Everyone hates the extra overhead caused by Quality Management, but end customers expect it. ISO standardization requires most manufacturing corporations to maintain massive process and quality records, Naval Reactors required massive process and quality records. However, I doubt there is much in the world that matches the attention to detail required to train on, maintain, operate, calibrate, and repair the Instrumentation and Control electronics. It is my experience that most corporations treat their QMSs more like a Red-Headed Stepchild (RHS) then a Golden Child. Record-keeping becomes a labor overhead and excessive chances for documenting errors. The motions are carried out only to satisfy the needs of the RHS, with little regard for any actual value the stepchild adds. After all, stepchildren are to be seen not heard. Quality Control is to be seen, not practiced.

There plenty of valid reasons this is so. In practice QMSs do tend to be excessive labor overhead and where errors are caught or made-up. If our training records did not display near-perfect, but not too perfect, matching of experience to exam scores, it was a hit against us in ORSE. When records are expected to be perfect, they must be maintained with a detachment from reality. I had to write exams that would make expected measurements. Good, but not too good. Creative grading was sometimes used in order to generate desired records. Such qualitative measurements can easily be massaged. Records must match expectations. This rarely takes the form of blatant record falsification, the testing is adjusted, the data is massaged, the truth is hidden under a fabric of half-truth.

I know how to hide reality under a fabric of half-truth, but more importantly I know how it is done. QMSs like Six Sigma strive for a statistical certainty of improvement, yet in practice companies see only extra overhead and micromanaging. I'm familiar with how Quality Control fails everyone, but I'm also familiar with how it can be correctly used. Obviously passing ORSE is not the sole purpose of nuclear reactor maintenance records and QMSs has more value then obtaining an ISO certification.

My new company lacks the bureaucracy, institutionalization, and corporate death-traps of QMS that my previous company had. As I work through my training on equipment unlike any I've worked on before, I am going to work on improving the training documentation and control. I am going to try and use my experience to find the most helpful balance of documentation and control vs. audit traps and labor overhead. I suspect that there will be plenty of opportunity to take on these tasks, without trampling on the toes, egos, and jobs of others. There's not much chance that I'll make up the lost income of my job transition, but when you see past the half-truth of monetary gain and instead measure career growth by experience and opportunity, I still feel I am on an excellent path.