About Duke

As the owner/operator of APLOMET Duke operated as a quality engineer, quality manager, and knowledge architect specializing in quality management.  He was formerly a quality professional in TRW’s automotive sector.

Duke holds undergraduate degrees in technology and business, a masters in adult education, and completed doctoral coursework in applied management and decision sciences. He served as an adjunct university faculty member teaching statistics and management research. He is also a graduate of the international program in the Gestalt approach to organization and system development.

During his career he has held certifications as an electronics technician (ICET), quality technician, quality engineer, quality auditor and quality manager (ASQ) and management consultant (IMC).  In 1998 he was elected Fellow of the American Society for Quality.  He taught review courses for ASQ’s CMQ/OE, CQA, CQT and CQIA certifications, and was a national instructor for ASQ for two decades.

He is the author of three books, Root Cause Analysis: The Core of Problem Solving and Corrective Action (2nd ed.), Performance Metrics: The Levers for Process Management, and Musings on Internal Quality Audits: Having a Greater Impact, and was co-editor of The Certified Quality Manager Handbook (2nd ed.). He has been published in Quality Progress, Quality Magazine, Quality World, Business Improvement Journal, APICS-The Performance Advantage, Manufacturing Engineering, The Auditor, and Quality Management Forum.

He served an adjunct professor teaching statistical quality control at a state university, and statistics and research methods at a private liberal arts college.  He is a frequent speaker for professional and trade audiences at the local, regional, national and international levels. He served as a examiner for the Tennessee Performance Excellence award as well as a volunteer SCORE counselor to small business.

Duke’s LinkedIn Profile

See a video of Duke in action as well as some client testimonials.

Duke in the news:

Anniversary of 26/11 Mumbia India

Alumni Award

Book signing at 2010 ASQ World Conference

Interview on Quality, Reliability and Organizational Change

A podcast on Root Cause Analysis

 

Musings: My Blog

Even ChatGPT Knows!

Thought it might be interesting to see what ChatGPT might say about potential problems with incentive systems.  Here's what it came up with: Case Study: Incentive System for Management Leads to Short-Term Thinking Introduction A manufacturing company, ABC Inc., was...

Critical Thinking – The Most Needed Skill

In many ways the quality profession had just been going along with the program ... focusing on compliance and performance of organizations and their processes. I believe if we want to really have an impact we should shift or add a focus on Critical Thinking.  Adopting...

RCA/CA Maturity

If you didn't happen to see my post on LinkedIn where I submitted a maturity matrix for evaluating the Root Cause Analysis & Corrective Action process you can get it here on my website. I've also added more videos to my YouTube channel, which can make for good...

Podcast on RCA

I was recently interviewed by Jon Taber who hosts a bi-weekly podcast on auditing.  Brief but good discussion of root cause analysis. https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/episode-34-root-cause-analysis-duke-okes/id1590407172?i=1000577361463

More RCA Videos

I always enjoy seeing how others approach root cause analysis.  Here are links to a couple of videos that are pretty good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D77iE0kSkLc   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk7Hg4w1Jsg

Long time, no see!

Yes, it's been several months since I've posted, although that doesn't mean I've not been musing.  Just too many things on the plate. However, here's a short collection of thoughts. Webinars: 1) One of the most frustrating things I've experienced in the past couple of...

Technology and Auditing

The use of Zoom, etc. for auditing has certainly taken hold, albeit driven primarily by COVID rather than a desire to improve the audit process. There are several other areas where technology can help, including Analytics, Process Mining, and Text Mining. I've already...

Some Wisdom Here

Whether it's investing or self-development, this interview of Chamath Palihapitiya by Barry Rithholtz is worthwhile.  You can listen or read here.

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