Who is the Broken Quality Initiative?

The Broken Quality Initiative was founded by Jim Lehner in 2024 as a response to the pervasive lack of knowledge of variation in business and industry. A graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), with an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering and a graduate degree in Manufacturing Engineering, Jim’s professional experience has exposed him to variety of problems in a variety of industries (automotive, aerospace, industrial machining, medical device, healthcare).

Regardless of the problem and regardless of the industry, one underlying truth quickly made itself clear in Jim’s professional journey. If we are to manufacture products of world-class quality we must, first and foremost, understand variation. Without an understanding of variation you are flying blind. You are leaving your success to luck and chance rather than analysis and insight.

But luck and chance cannot reliably and repeatedly produce results. They do not and will not ever combine to form a comprehensive method. To do that requires tools and techniques that allow us to turn data into insights and insights into actions that result in change.

Luckily, for more than 100 years, a method and tool capable of such a task has helped industry understand and address the virus of variation. That method, Statistical Process Control (SPC), and that tool, the process behavior chart (control chart), is how we reliably and repeatedly improve quality and reduce costs. It is how we transform data into insights and insights into actions that result in quantifiable and lasting change.