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
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
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
Book signing at 2010 ASQ World Conference
Interview on Quality, Reliability and Organizational Change
A podcast on Root Cause Analysis
Musings: My Blog
Coronavirus and Root Cause Analysis
Since COVID-19 is nearly all you see/hear these days I thought I might as well do my part. Started thinking about how the response to it is related to problems organizations face when trying to do root cause analysis. Here are some thoughts: When a problem occurs...
A Process for Lack of Quality
If your organization screws up so often that you actually advertise that you will (sort of) fix it, you have a serious problem. See Domino's "Delivery Insurance" They're promoting it like it's a great feature (as compared to fixing potholes).
Who Else Should They Listen To???
I loved (that's a joke) BMW's comments in this article about the big grille: https://www.autoblog.com/2019/12/17/bmw-defends-big-grille/ I'm thinking that yes, people who buy the vehicles probably are ok with the grille. But what about all the people who DON"T buy a...
The Complexity of Finding Root Causes
You just can't not learn if you listen to Richard Feynman: z6dRcL$g$L.yyYa45
Great Keynote by Human Error Guru
Sidney Dekker is thought of as one of the top gurus relative to human error. Here's a worthwhile video of one of his presentations. Although it's safety-focused, it's just as applicable to quality errors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-YN6hD1WU
(Trying to) Understand Human Behavior
Here's a lecture that provides a great view of why human behavior is so complex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bnSY4L3V8s Unfortunately he doesn't take it further with recommendations on how to move people from the Us to the Them view.
Normality in SPC
I've never been one to worry too much about normality of data. Here's a tremendous article explaining why it isn't particularly important for control charts. https://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/statistics-column/normality-myth-090819.html
Interesting Perspective on Risk-Based Auditing
Although likely intended for financial auditors, a lot of the advice is also relevant for quality auditors. https://internalaudit360.com/conducting-risk-assessments-the-total-quality-auditing-way/
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