Unlocking the Benefits of IAQG Membership: Insights from Industry Experts

Join us in this episode as we delve into the multitude of benefits that come with IAQG membership. Our esteemed guests, Akiko Hattori, Susie Neal, and Guiseppe Leoni, who have been long-time IAQG participants, will shed light on the advantages of joining the IAQG.

One of the remarkable aspects of IAQG membership is that there is no fee associated with joining. However, the value it brings is immeasurable. By becoming a member, you open yourself up to a world of possibilities, including:

1.    Networking and collaborative opportunities that can broaden your professional connections and foster innovation.

2.    Enhanced learning experiences, allowing you to develop a deeper understanding of the industry and its standards.

3.    Access to a wealth of educational resources designed to support your growth and development.

Discover the extensive benefits that both companies and individuals can gain through IAQG membership by tuning in to this episode.

Let's introduce our guests:

• Akiko Hattori: IAQG and APAQG Membership Chair, SJAC, The Society of Aerospace Japanese Companies.
• Susie Neal: AAQG Membership Chair.
• Giuseppe Leoni: EAQG Membership Chair.

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 – Unlocking the Benefits of IAQG Membership 

Susan: Greetings everyone and welcome. I'm your host, Susan Maston and with me today are Akiko Hattori, Giuseppe, Leone and Susie Neal. Akiko is the IAQG and APAQG membership chair with SJAC, Society of Japanese aerospace companies. Susie Neal is the AAQQG membership chair, and Giuseppe Leone is the EAQG membership chair. Welcome to the show, everyone. 

Guest 1: Thank you. Thank you for having us. 

Susan: Thank you. Well, what I want to talk about today, obviously, is membership, right? You know, the IAQG is a nonprofit organization all built on the backs of our members, and we want to talk about that vital part of our mission. So, you know, let's discuss how you become a member, and the companies and the different membership levels. If we could, you know, just jump in and get started. Akiko, I'd love to just ask you, what does it mean to become a member. How do you become a member of the IAQG? 

Guest 1: Right, the IAQG consists of three global sectors, the Americas, European and Asia Pacific sectors. New IAQG member candidates need to contact the sector membership chair in the sector where the candidate company is located. The further processes to be an IAQG member are currently defined by each sector, but we are in a transition phase for a global process. Currently we are reviewing each sector's membership rules and establishing one standardized process for membership and member performance criteria. 

Susan: Thank you. So companies are members, not people? Is that correct Akiko?

Guest 1: Yes, that's correct. 

Susan: Okay. But so then, what is the benefit to people as well as the companies, to become members or member participants. Susie, can you explain that? 

Guest 2: Yes, I will try my best on that. So really, the the benefit for a member or an actual person to become a member, a company, the person, what they get out of that is they get to work very closely with all the different organizations out there, the different companies. They really learn how all of our standards flow together.

Guest 2: And I think the biggest benefit for them is the networking that they get out of that and the understanding of all the different responsibilities that a company is required to follow within the aerospace industry what the standard requires for their sub tier suppliers and their suppliers. So they get the whole picture there, and we're also bringing in a lot of our regulatory authorities that are involved in this, so they get to see what their perspective of our standards are and how they expect us to implement those and flow them down. 

Susan: Wow. So it really is kind of interacting with the who's who of the industry.

Guest 2: It is  and you know, for if you think about an early career person that's coming in, this is one of the best ways for them to get involved, because they understand at that point. And just think of all the different possibilities when you think about all of the major companies that are involved in this, what a great opportunity for somebody that is coming up in the aerospace industry to look and see what's available out there, and where do they really want to end up. 

Susan: Interesting. So let's take a step back. There are different levels of membership that organizations can become a part of. Giuseppe, can you kind of explain the difference between these three levels, the full associate and affiliate? 

Guest 3: Yes, we have three level of membership. We have full membership category, associate member category and affiliate member category. Full member categories are member that has IAQG voting rights and support the various IAQG activity. Associate Member are member that do not have voting right, but also support the various activity in the IAQG and in within the affiliate member, we have, let me say, three different sub level because we have company that are part of the aerospace industry and willing to become to contribute, but do not cover the full scope to become member, or company that are prevented to join or settle because there is a full or associate member located in a sector or the third possibility is for companies that are prevented to join a sector as a full or associate because the corporate already get the devotee rights. 

Susan: Okay? So that's the criteria of the three levels. Are there dues associated with those levels? Is there? Is there a cost or an investment?

Guest 3: No The reason at the moment, there is no cost for sin, for to become a member, but there are commitment, particularly for full and associate things like participate in the volatility, reply to the ballot activity, participate in the equity meeting, participate in the financial base, support the ICOP scheme and things like that. But as I said, these are applicable or if for full and Associate Member.

Susan: okay, so the investment is really the volunteer portion of the organization, as Susie was talking earlier, all the committees that people can become a part of and really understanding and building and constructing these standards. But obviously you need people to do them. You need the work. So that's where that membership and that investment comes into play. Membership dues, so there's, while there's no dollar figure attached to these member company participation levels, there certainly is a an investment of time, effort and energy to help progress the mission. 

Guest 3: Yes, correct. If everything is is on a voluntary basis, and that the major support that the member have to provide. 

Susan: And how many companies are there that are actually participating within our at the IAQG level, and then maybe at the different levels, like, how does that work? 

Guest 3: Okay, we have, at the moment, we have about 91 member company associated at IAQG level, 27 for members, 2031 associate and 40 affiliate members. And the splitting in the values level is for full we have 10 in the America sector, 10 in the European sector, and seven in the as a Pacific sector, while associate are 9 in the America sector, 11 in the European sector and 11 in the Asia Pacific sector. And for affiliate, we have zero affiliate at the moment in the American sector, 24 in the European sector and 16 in the Asia Pacific sector. 

Susan: So the organizations come together at their individual sectors and then rise up into the IAQG level as a whole. So there are different is there different working being done at the sector levels versus the IAQG level? Susie, can you kind of jump in on that one? 

Guest 2: Yes, you're absolutely right. Susan, that's how we're structured today. So if you take the 9100 standard, for example, I think that's the one that most people are familiar with. So each sector will have a 9100 writing team for that particular sector. And then we have one overall, IAQG 9100 sector lead, and, or, I'm sorry, industry lead. And so all three sectors then meet together twice a year at our meetings, and then they have separate meetings, you know, on a quarterly basis, or something like that, to go in, and everyone can work together at that time. 

Guest 2: So if they're really you're bringing in each sector's perspective on things that they have seen coming in from their company's request, their suppliers request, or even their regulatory, and so they all come together, then twice a year, and that's how we come up with what our draft standard is going to be that we send out for ballot, for everyone to vote on. 

Susan: So you really do get a full global perspective, because it's almost from the ground up. So there's different nuances in different parts of the world that gets taken into account. 

Guest 2: It does. And the good thing about the way we're structured is that we're not only bringing in airspace companies, airspace, space or defense, we're bringing in all of our regulatory authorities. And if you've got a small mom and pop supplier out there, they can participate in these different committees. So that way we're hearing how it would impact a small organization versus a large organization, and it's totally different on the way that these companies have to implement because think about it, if you're a really small company, you don't have all the resources, but you also don't have the complexity either that these larger OEMs have. So we want to bring all of that into where everyone's successful in implementing our standards and being able to flow them down. 

Susan: That must be a monumental but very satisfying process when everybody does is able to work together. Because Akiko, if I'm not under I mean, this is a who's who of the industry. You're all working together. But in essence, it's a handful of really big competitors too. Patients themselves, by day are working you know, it's your competition that you're sitting across the table from, but in this particular element, you're all together on one team. That must be, definitely has to be one of the main benefits for participants. So Giuseppe, let's talk about, you know, a little bit more of that breakdown between the sectors. What's the differences between the sectors? 

Guest 3: The main detail of the moment, as looking to the number that I provided before and is the fact that in the America set of the moment, there are no affiliate and. The affiliate level is mainly the level for the small company that Susie mentioned before, to allow small company to be part of the process. Because that the reason why we have created the affiliate to extend much more the burden, to open the burden to this kind of small companies, to allow them to be involved with the great, great players on the aerospace world and to benefit of that. And also for us, for IAQG, with as big OEM, for the OEM to listen the voice of the vision member that will help also to develop tools much better focalize it for their use. 

Susan: Yes. And so Susie, you know one, you were talking about the benefits and the investment level, but Guiseppe raised a good point about the people themselves. You know, not only these small mom and pops, as you refer to them, too, but individuals. I've noticed that there are a number of industry there's industry knowledge base that aren't necessarily, at the moment, affiliated with any large organization, maybe at one point they were but we're still able to work with them. How do these individual contributors come into play?

Guest 2: So that's really a good point there, Susan, because you think about it, some of these people have been involved for 20 plus years in this industry, actually in the IAQG, and that's a lot of expertise, when you think about it, a lot of our workforce is aging, so they're retiring, but we do not want to lose that knowledge, so we're able to bring them back in as individual contributors, and they can offer to participate. They can request it, and so we they come back in and they're involved in our different committees. 

Guest 2: Some of them are coming back and doing a little bit of contracting work, because we do not have the skill sets today. We're like most companies, our knowledge is leaving, but we've got to have a way to bring them back in until we can get that knowledge transferred over and then so that early careers moment, it is the early careers very important in that because that's how we're going to be able to transfer this knowledge over. And I mean, everyone's running through the same thing the early careers right now. They really don't know where they want to end up in quality. There's so many different areas in the quality arena that they could go but you need a certain skill set, and we need people that are knowledgeable in FOD, are knowledgeable in calibration, just in writing standards, and that early career program helps us work with them and determine where their passion is. 

Guest 2: Because one of the things that I have found after being involved in this, as long as I have, is that you need that passion, and that's where you're going to do your best at is whatever your passion is, if it's in writing procedures, we all have a need for that and understanding the standards helping to develop the training. Those are certain skill sets that you need. And this way, with early career, you're able to see every aspect of it so that is able in us to tie in the individual contributors. So those that may have retired but still want to do the mentoring part with the early careers. 

Susan: Really, that transfer of knowledge is critical to for tomorrow. So Akiko, where can people learn how to become a member? Where can companies learn to become a member? Or what's their first steps in that process? 

Guest 1: It is possible to send an inquiry via the IAQG.org website. 

Susan: Okay, and so a person sends the inquiry, I'm going to assume it goes to one of you to respond. And then what's a general time frame of that conversation? You know, should a company meet the abilities to say, become an associate member or an affiliate member? Giuseppe, what's that time frame tend to take? I mean, is it aligned with those meetings we talked about earlier, when you have them twice a year? 

Guest 3: Yeah, we have a meeting twice a year when we received an application through the website. And what I normally do, I'm talking about my specific setup, but I think it's the same also for for the specific and for American sector. I just reply to the person and asking to provide additional information figures of the company. They found the company in order to have a better understanding of which kind of company is applying. 

Guest 3: Then when I received the information, I normally involve the European Executive Committee meeting to go through the application and get it on information collected to propose the level of membership, associate or affiliate, depending on the result of the analysis. And when I have the vote for the member, then I communicate to the applicant company, the chair of the executive and the Welcome to the IAQG to the European Center as associate or affiliate, depending on the situation. 

Susan: Yes, wonderful. Thank you. So it can take a couple months. It's a conversation back and forth, and it sounds like it's a vote 

 Guest 3: Depends. Sometimes it takes about 30 days one month. Sometimes it requires less time than that. The company is reacting very quickly. The process is very fast could be very fast, I should say. 

 Susan: Now. Susie, if I am sitting, if I'm one of the listeners, and I know that my company is a member company, and I want to become part of the organization, what should I be doing? 

 Guest 2: So there's a list of our key contacts out there by company. So typically, what you would do is you would go through your company and make sure that they're okay with you participating. That would be the first step, and then come in let us know that you're interested. So we have a form out there that you can complete. And then we'll add you into our member clicks as member of that particular company that you're with. 

 Guest 2: And then you will start getting notifications, you can start going to the meetings, but key is working through your company and making sure that they're okay with you supporting because keep in mind, your company is the one that's going to have to absorb the cost of you participating in these we are starting and trying to do a lot of our things, virtual our meetings, so that's taking some of the burden off of the companies, and you're still able to participate, so you don't have all the travel costs. 

 Susan: That probably does really open the doors to a lot of new participation opportunities for people. 

 Guest 2: It does that's really helped. 

 Susan: Is there anything else about the membership, anything new on the horizon we should be talking about. Or, I know earlier Akiko, Giuseppe, I think one of you had talked about how you're looking to harmonize. You know, have more of a of a singular view on membership versus the three sectors. Is there anything new that we should be paying attention to? Maybe different types of levels of membership. 

 Guest 3: No, don't think different type of level might be maybe Susie and Akiko would like to add something later. What we are looking at harmonization, not only of the membership criteria, which is already on the way to be published and normalized, but also to look at the harmonized commitment criteria, because at the moment, the three sector have similar but not equal criteria for commitment, and we are looking to have all the same criteria for at worldwide level. 

 Susan: We do live in a global society. I guess we should all be walking the same March, right? 

 Guest 3: Yes.

 Susan: Wonderful. Well Akiko, Susie, Giuseppe, thank you very much for your time today and all the information that you shared. 

 Guest 3: Thank you. 

 Guest 2: Thank you. 

 Susan: Yeah, I think our listeners really had an opportunity here to learn more about how to become a member, how to participate, and what does it mean, and the benefits, I think you, Susie, you really hit the nail on the head that opportunity networking and learning and understanding the whole process, the opportunities that are available to the to our early careers, that knowledge transfer so much value, and it all begins with being a member. So thank you. I appreciate the time you given up. This is Susan Matson, and you've been listening to the IAQG quality horizon until next time, stay safe.