A spotlight on the EAQG!

We sat down with the Quality Executive Director for Leonardo, Fortunato “Nino” Giardina, to discuss the EAQG and the role, importance, and value their sector brings to the IAQG.

In this podcast, you will hear more about the origin of the EAQG, and how leadership opened up opportunities within the sector to increase membership, and achieve growth, change, and harmonization.

Giardina also shares his passion for the early careers program and the importance of growth in this area. He professes, “You can’t have quality stay the same when the rest of the world is changing.”

Listen to learn more about what is on the horizon for the EAQG.

More about our guest: 

Fortunato “Nino” Giardina

-       EAQG sector lead 

-       Lead for the IAQG operations council and the EAQG early careers program 

-       Vice-chair for the IAQG standards council

The IAQG is the International Aerospace Quality Group and sets the standard for quality within the worldwide supply chain within the aviation, space, and defense industry. IAQG currently maintains 26 active standards that establish common/shared tools and methods for quality improvement. To learn more, visit https://iaqg.org.  

Transcript

The Quality Horizon – Spotlight on the EAQG 

Susan Matson: [00:00:00] Greetings everyone and welcome. I am your host Susan Matson and with me today is Fortunato, Nino, Giardinia. Nino is the quality executive director for Leonardo. Additionally, he is the EAQG sector lead, as well as the lead for the IAQG operations council and the EAQG early careers program. And just recently, Nino has also accepted the position of vice chair for the IAQG standard council.

Susan Matson: Welcome to the show, Nino.

Nino Fortunato: Hi, thank you. Thank you, Susan. Nice to speak with you 

Susan Matson: Nice to speak with you, too. Nino to help our listeners understand how the IAQG is structured, it's broken down into three geographic areas. You have the AAQG in the Americas, the APAQG representing Asia Pacific countries, and then we have the EAQG.

Susan Matson: So can you tell our listeners, what is the geographic reach for the EAQG? 

Nino Fortunato: So the EQG is called the [00:01:00] European sector. In there, we call all the proper European community, plus the UK potentially also Africa sits within the area of the EAQG, but we remember from the Eastern, Israel Turkey.

Nino Fortunato: And also we have members from Russia currently in order to abide by the sanctions that are in place due to the war. They are suspended, they are we are monitoring the situation and we hope to have a quick resolution and restore our global reach and contribution from all the members.

Susan Matson: That sounds like it's a variety of countries and people and cultures and dialect. So how did you all come together? What's the origin of the EAQG? [00:02:00] I mean Europe is not small. 

Nino Fortunato: No, of course. Maybe in terms of variety, being all in Europe, a lot of countries, a lot of companies, even very relevant companies, all together.

Nino Fortunato: We joined in the formation of IAQG as European countries and companies together with the Asian, but we wanted to, in this organization of sectors, we wanted to respect the peculiar cultural and and also industrial situation of each of the sectors. That's the reason why I think in IAQG, we are trying to of course, act globally, but have a strong presence locally within the sectors in order to provide every everyone a close possibility to get in touch with the association.

Nino Fortunato: And this even more in the European sector, [00:03:00] maybe the European sector, we started with the idea of involving not just the big OAM, the big companies groups like just to mention Boeing or Airbus or Leonardo, I belong to, but also small companies to hear the voice of small, medium enterprises that after all are the backbone of the aerospace and defense supply chain.

Nino Fortunato: So we are doing our best to improve the quality in the supply chain, and they are absolutely relevant for our vision. And therefore, we started in Europe, indeed, creating even spatial category of membership that we called the affiliate. And in this way allowing the members not to necessarily fulfill all the commitment [00:04:00] requirements.

Nino Fortunato: It means providing a number of experts or so no, or things like that. We are open also to small enterprises and indeed we have. Among our members, even more enterprise. 100 people. Okay, but very relevant and significant for what we are trying to do. They joined because they joined the in order to benefit of this network and the providing as they point of view.

Nino Fortunato: This is something that is very effective. Proof to be very effective. Now we have half and half, some 20 something what we call associate and full members. So the ones that are relatively bigger and in the position to, to fulfill the requirement. The requirements provide an effort, okay, in terms of participation and membership and so on, but we have also 2021 affiliate and among the affiliate in order to [00:05:00] touch, to involve as much as possible, we also admitted starting also this from Europe the trade associations.

Nino Fortunato: So the trade associations bring with themselves a large number of companies in Europe. So the reach of the IAQG through EAQG, I think is extremely ample extremely wide. Considering also the diversity that you mentioned in terms of languages, in terms of countries, in terms of also even competition between the company, the companies and that we have it's quite I would say a complex and a very articulated environment.

Susan Matson: So how, yes, and exclusive, inclusive, not exclusive, inclusive with all of those organizations and that affiliate membership being able to that's the one thing I've noticed in the past year, you've really flourished. Constantly being able to look for new opportunities and new memberships have really come out of the EAQG. [00:06:00]

Susan Matson: So how are you streamlining the efforts? There's so many different countries with different regulatory issues and uniqueness is about them. How do we streamline that? How are you working with the individual countries and the organizations and the trade affiliations to make sure that we're all doing things consistently and harmonizing.

Nino Fortunato: Yeah we have as the other sector, we rely on a flow of meetings that we arranged twice a year as the other sector. And those are the opportunity we recently with the next one in Bordeaux, we are going to enlarge even the period of days in order to have meetings again in Europe. So in a way that is easy to be reached by all the members, even smaller.

Nino Fortunato: And so we created a layer of participation that is consistent with the bigger international meetings[00:07:00]. But we are trying to create a local, local I mean European, this sector. When you say local, of course, someone could smile because when I say local, it's a wide local a local opportunity. Very recently the latest decision we made is the PSCI, the team that is an international team, the PSCI.

Nino Fortunato: By the way, I'm the sponsor. I'm the AP sponsor, proud of being the sponsor of the PSCI, but the PSCI, we created a network for the PSCI to foster the use of the SCMH to bring into the PSCI the requirements that come from Europe also from these small companies. So we are creating something that gives the opportunity to get in touch with the global initiatives of the association even working from a local point of view.

Nino Fortunato: Of course the consistency is fundamental and it's really paramount importance, the communication, because we increased the expectation of being aware [00:08:00] of what is happening. This is the first step. When you have so many members and you have involved so many professionals, you also take the commitment that, okay, I will let you know what is happening in the most clear easy way possible.

Nino Fortunato: And this is the strategy of the IAQG. This is the way we can contribute. And these are the opportunities also, because we are substantially, what we do is based on volunteers. And so we try to offer in the, in these opportunities in the easiest way possible. And so we have this kind of, we call them general meetings. 

Nino Fortunato: General assembly is the one at the IAQG level. General meeting is the EAQG European local level. And we have an executive committee made of the full members in In Europe we recently decided to increase the meetings of the executive [00:09:00] committee in order to have a clock that is even, let me say, higher in order to fully follow and if possible, even drive the evolution that IAQG is having.

Nino Fortunato: You notice that in this period, IAQG is doing a lot of things. There are a lot of new projects and the results and achievements that we expect in the, the near future. And therefore, the European sector is trying to give its contribution to be actively involved in all these things.

Nino Fortunato: Something that, could be worth mentioning, for example, is the SDO initiative where we are changing, let me say, changing our habits because we are going to work with a single SDO at IAQG global local level. This means that in the European sector, we will no [00:10:00] any longer work with our local European standard development organization to publish the standards and while converging with all the association into the American one, we are very active in the common process that we are going to follow.

Susan Matson: Yes, and that is, that's part of the organization that you just became the vice chair of, the IAQG standards council. So moving quickly into that realm and what, why go to a single SDO single distribution? One of the things that I read it streamlining, making sure we get things to market faster. Would you agree with that? 

Nino Fortunato: Yes. When I said that we have to think globally and act locally in the past, we were a bit too much in the EAQG. Local in the way we publish, distributed, managed the standard and delivered. Our value to the industry.

Nino Fortunato: This route [00:11:00] I mean different, I mean SDO standard developer organization publishers essentially of our standard that brought let me say, a non-consistent time to market in the different areas of the world. A lot of bureaucracy something that was really complicated to manage. It took years to have a standard published in certain countries compared to others.

Nino Fortunato: And then we recognized within the EAQG that streamlining this process, relying on a single provider, it's a partner, but it's essentially a service provider for us, could have helped a lot in being timely, shortening our time to market, and indeed, this is what we are doing.

Nino Fortunato: This creates, its a change program, it's a change project. And so it has to be managed with all the care. Of a change in all the organization, and [00:12:00] this is a challenge that we tackled recently in Europe and in the recent two to couple of months we did it. We worked a lot, very actively.

Nino Fortunato: On purpose I launched a team of European companies. To contribute in the description of the new process following the the principle that the one that has to change more are the one that has to design the new, the new process. And this is what we are doing. 

Susan Matson: So change. And one of the things that I know you're also extremely passionate about, not only change in the process, but change in the people. And for the most part, one of the things I want to talk about is your passion for their early careers program. How are we bringing new people into the IAQG? 

Nino Fortunato: Yeah, we started, to be honest we started in[00:13:00]  2018 before the COVID and it showed the potential asking the companies. To identify, yes, early career with high potential, clever, but still, let me say, not tamed in some way by the companies. After a certain number of years, you lose that original energy that brings you to be you are a bit rebellious. You are asking yourself why companies are so restrictive. So, okay, injecting this kind of resources in our association brought already in 2018 a benefit. In terms of energy to change. 

Nino Fortunato: Then we had the COVID and now we resume that project and in the Americas and in Europe. And yeah, I'm personally involved. I'm very happy to be the, [00:14:00] they sponsor, they mentor and trying to bring them, first of all they started in this June. And first of all to understand what we are, but without explaining too much.

Nino Fortunato: We did a lot, and you know it very well, in terms of communication, in terms of how we are perceived, outside, website and everything. So the first challenge for this area career is see how suitable we are for digital native generation people. What do you understand about that? So without giving them a lot of guidance material, we are challenging all of them to get their own perception of what we are. 

Nino Fortunato: So this is also a benchmark is a way to test how much attractive we are for this kind of resources. How we are perceived by this kind of resources. And then I'm very happy to say that [00:15:00] some of them already volunteered to join teams and to start working actively.

Nino Fortunato: And this is a great result because injecting new resources, yes, we can we can ensure that the future of the organization. It’s clear that as any other company, we need to have succession plan and we need to have rockets. We need to have high potential resources. The fact that they are maybe less expert, less mature in the quality matter compared to others in my opinion they can bring a lot of sometimes even provocation in what we do.

Nino Fortunato: It's difficult to think that quality can stay the same when all the rest of the world is changing. And I personally think and all the high associations started moving in that direction that we have to look for [00:16:00]  and I agree the level of diversity, not just as we are in Europe or diversity of countries, languages, but also in terms of knowledge and disciplines we need to be attractive for those that can help companies to delivery highest level of quality in product and services. 

Nino Fortunato: And of course they are quality guys, but not just quality guys, people from engineering people from manufacturing people from a lot of functions, including finance dealing with the cost of non quality is something that quality very often try to do.

Nino Fortunato: But without involving the finance guy you don't go very far. And so this is a campaign that as the objective to create diversity in age, experience, discipline and of course country, language, and everything, and everything. [00:17:00] The, and managing that diversity is really great.

Susan Matson: I think it's got to be so much fun. And I loved what you said. Quality, you cannot have quality stay the same when the rest of the world changes. What we're doing all across the board, whether we're talking about our people and early careers program, the SDO with going from three different publications, distribution houses to one.

Susan Matson: We are changing. We are evolving. What are some, what are some of the things I know that that you just had a leadership you just had a leadership meeting and you're planning for tomorrow. Are there other things that you wanted to touch on in terms of some of the other initiatives for change that you're really looking forward to getting involved in and making that happen?

Nino Fortunato: But I think that we had such a strong effort in changing, in launching new things in IAQG. You mentioned some of them, but you are, you know very well. [00:18:00] The digital transformation that has been really a transformation in our process, in our way of thinking. And we are still in the position now to exploit the benefit and to bring the potential of it to the extent we are looking for.

Nino Fortunato: And so in my opinion, now it's time to strengthen someone uses the term ecosystem. So with all the things that now we have including AIMM, the maturity model that is substantially a new product line, a new way for IAQG to provide value, to offer value to our stakeholders. 

Nino Fortunato: We have now to strengthen all those things together and consider even more than in the past what we are doing as a global value proposition in order to fulfill the requirements of our stakeholders, starting from ourselves, starting from ourselves [00:19:00] because our company are as members are the first stakeholders of the association, and therefore, I wouldn't say that we need to do anything new.

Nino Fortunato: We have done a lot of new things, but we have to strengthen to make the all the system more robust with all the things that we have done. So I mean the organization, the way you're working the SDO offers opportunity, but we have to be in a position to exploit that. So let's see now the real time to market that we can have.

Nino Fortunato: For sure, we don't want to be perceived, if any, this happened as a huge association with a lot of processes, providing, of course reliable, very well stable standards, but taking the, no, we want to be definitely more dynamic. And so it's time to use all the tools, the systems, the things that we have, we [00:20:00] put in order to be effective.

Susan Matson: Yeah, showcase the value, take care of the people, move forward. So, before we go, I had to ask one more question. How about you, Nino? What got you involved in the IAQG? I know you've been around for a while. 

Nino Fortunato: Yeah, I've been around for a while. I started in 2014. So, I'm not among the founders, the real old first ones. Okay, I joined a bit later. Leonardo, that was before. As a company stayed within the regional group of the founders of the ADAQG. I work in my career for IT, business process improvement, than quality. [00:21:00] And so what I have as a background brought me in some way quite naturally toward the networks benchmarking networks activities like that.

Nino Fortunato: And so when then the electronic business of Leonardo joined the IAQG was very happy to be selected as the representative. Then Leonardo became strengthened the idea of being a single company, a single operative company, where before Filmeccanica was a financial cluster of companies.

Nino Fortunato: And so being a single company, we also became a single member. One member in the IAQG, and I'm even more proud that I, I was the representative in that. And so my career in in IAQG and my involvement grow together with the changes In my company and that therefore I strongly believe in the idea of integrating of sharing of getting the best from what we do [00:22:00] in the AQG involving my colleagues with internal networks in the company.

Nino Fortunato: We discussed many times about among the member representatives and what we do in order to keep our companies involved, aware, to avoid the risk of being isolated then. And this implies a double, and so you have to work internally and in the IAQG. So what I do in the IAQG is the mirror of what I then do in the company. And I think that is extremely, satisfies me a lot. 

Susan Matson: That is wonderful. Thank you, Nino. I really appreciate the time and I am delighted that we had this chance to talk and shine some light on what the EAQG is doing and in the world of the IAQG, what you've been working on and some of the things that are still to come. So best of luck with all of the initiatives. 

Nino Fortunato: Thank you so much, Susan. Ciao. 

Susan Matson: Thank you. [00:23:00] Ciao. This has been Susan Matson, and you've been listening to the IAQG Quality Horizon. Until next time, stay safe.