2006–2007 Recipient
Daniel Child
Brigham Young U.

“My name is Daniel Child and I am currently a senior at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I plan to graduate in April of 2008 with a BS in Manufacturing Engineering. I also currently work full-time at a local company called U.S. Synthetic as a Process Engineering Technician. Through my schooling and work experience I have come to appreciate the profound need for our nation to take large steps in its application of quality sciences to the manufacturing realm. For many years our country sat at the pinnacle of the production world. With no regard for the products we were creating we let our standards slip and ultimately fell behind in the international market. For years we have had the teachings of Shewhart, Deming, Juran and others. Yet even today, while we hear much talk about improvement there is much work to be done. For me, I feel lucky to be entering the field at a time when so much is required to regain our standing in the global economy. I am excited to try my hardest to bring change to our standards for production. The tools are at hand and I look forward to melding key quality concepts such as the Taguchi Loss Function, design of experiments, variation, C_pk and SPC together with production concepts such as Lean Manufacturing, Kaizen, JIT and TOC. The focus of the manufacturing program at BYU is ‘to develop leaders in technology and managers of innovation.’ I will enter the industry and help companies to make the changes critically needed if we are regain our position in the global market. Deming stated that what is needed is radical change, and I am eager to apply myself to the challenges we now face.”