Press Releases

LOSS OF COLUMBIA SHUTTLE WAS A QUALITY PROBLEM

“The loss of Columbia with seven precious lives was a quality problem. Kalpana Chawla did not have to die young. NASA did not draw lesson from the failure of the Challenger. The core problem that lay at the heart of Challenger which exploded in 1986 applies to Columbia as well. No escape–capsule was added to get astronauts out in the event of a calamity. The space shuttle used a design which is 3 decades old. It has not capitalized on numerous break through innovations in materials science & rocket motor design. The design of heat-dissipating tiles is 20 years old. The air frame is 22 years old. According to Gregg Eastbrook of the Brookings Institution of US, untill recently, the flight deck computer on the space shuttle used old 8086 chips that no self respecting teenager would dream of using even for videogames”. This was stated by Dr. Madhav Mehra, Chairman World Quality Council, in his key note address at the inaugural session of the 13th World Congress on Total Quality being held from 14th – 16th February, 2003 at ITC Hotel Grand Maratha Sheraton, Mumbai. Dr. Mehra added “The space shuttle system has been locked into old technology and the political system prevents adoption of a modern design a classic story of resistance of innovation. A programme called Space Launch Initiative designed to cut cost and make it more reliable was torpedoed by powerful contractors. Congressional delegations from states that immensely benefited from this space programme fought frantically against Post Challenger reforms”.

Dr. Mehra asserted that the bottled water used at the space station which is supposed to be serviced by the space shuttle cost $500,000 per day. The money required for AIDS which would afflict certain death to 70 million people is a fraction of the sum involved in this mindless money-driven mission of manned flights to service the space station. Most of the space goals could be achieved by unmanned flights by automated devices at a fraction of the cost.

Dr. Mehra lamented that quality as a discipline no longer occupied the place of pride it had in the boardrooms of 1980s and 1990s. But thanks to Enron, quality is back in fashion. He added, “It is now widely acknowledged that the recent corporate collapses of Enron, World.com Tyco, Vivendi, ABB, Marconi and many of other iconic enterprises, were basically because of quality problem. It is not only the poor quality of disclosures and reporting. It is the information integrity and accuracy of corporate data, which has been questioned by the exposures of Enron and World.com.

“The case of bottled water in India is another instance that further reinforces the overriding importance of quality and reliability”, stated Dr.Mehra. “A whole nation is paying through it’s nose for drinking water which is unfit for human consumption”.

The annual Quality Congress which is organized by the Institute of Directors is treated as a Mecca for quality professionals worldwide. There are in all 92 speakers already registered. Golden Peacock Awards for Quality & Innovation will also be presented at the inaugural session. A new Golden Peacock Award has been instituted to encourage corporatisation of the entertainment industry. There are two awards, one for the film & the other for the TV section. Rajshri Productions and Yashraj Films have been declared winners in the Hindi Cinema category of films & Balaji Telefilms in the TV section.

Saswati Basu Chatterjee
Director Public Relation