ISO Excellence Awards Go to U.S. Experts on ISO Technical Committee 176, Quality Management and Quality Assurance
11/17/2021
ANSI is the U.S. member body to ISO
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recently awarded ISO Excellence Awards to Govind Ramu and William Kovacich, U.S. experts with leadership roles in ISO Technical Committee (TC) 176, Quality Management and Quality Assurance. The ISO Excellence Award recognizes the contribution of individuals for recent achievements related to ISO’s technical work that can be considered as a major contribution to furthering the interests of standardization and related activities. The American Society for Quality (ASQ), an ANSI member and accredited standards developer, serves as the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) administrator to ISO TC 176.
Govind Ramu, manager of business process excellence at Google and ASQ fellow is convenor of ISO TC 176 Subcommittee (SC) 3, Supporting technologies, Working Group (WG) 23 (“Revision of ISO 10014”) and project leader of ISO 10014:2021, Quality management systems — Managing an organization for quality results — Guidance for realizing financial and economic benefits. Published in 2021, the document gives guidelines for realizing financial and economic benefits by applying a top-down structured approach to achieving financial and economic benefits.
With the ISO Excellence Award, Mr. Ramu is recognized for his dedicated work and management of the working group, leading from a simple design specification to a timely standard publication, and for keeping the subcommittee and the global community informed on the progress and ideas included in ISO 10014 via a set of publications in ISO, ASQ journals, and conference presentations. Read about his additional contributions via a recent ASQ post.
William (Bill) Kovacich, metallurgist and quality engineer at Caterpillar Inc., is convenor of ISO TC 176 SC 3 WG 19 (“Revision of ISO 10013”) and project leader of ISO 10013:2021, Quality management systems — Guidance for documented information. The international standard gives guidance for the development and maintenance of the documented information necessary to support an effective quality management system, tailored to the specific needs of the organization.
With the award, Mr. Kovacich is recognized for his dedicated work and excellent management of the working group and its efforts, and for leading the necessary meetings that led to a 100% approval on the draft standard and a guidance for documented information.
How ISO TC 176 Supports Quality Management Systems
To date, ISO TC 176 has published 21 ISO standards that are related to the work of its TCs and SCs. The technical committee focuses on standardization in the field of quality management (generic quality management systems and supporting technologies), as well as quality management standardization in specific sectors at the request of the affected sector and the ISO Technical Management Board.
ISO TC 176 is also entrusted with an advisory function to all ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) technical committees to ensure the integrity of the generic quality system standards and the effective implementation of the ISO/IEC sector policy on quality management systems deliverables.
ANSI extends its congratulations to Govind Ramu and William Kovacich on their recognition and ongoing contributions to the greater standardization community.
