Quality Assurance

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="044085a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Carmine Gorga</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Carmine Gorga"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Economic Process"><U>The Economic Process</U></A>   |   <B>Quality Assurance</B>   |   <A HREF="id56.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Polis"><U>Polis</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="045d2e83.jpg"> <div> <IMG SRC="05b6fa20.jpg" border=0 width="111" height="162" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Economic Process"><U><I><B>The Economic Process</B></I></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id30.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Quality Assurance"><U><I><B>Quality Assurance</B></I></U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Quality Assurance</I></div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="074a3f00.jpg" border=0 width="163" height="240" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> Marine Fisheries Review > Wntr, 1989 </div> <bR> <div> Quality Assurance of Seafood. - book reviews</div> <bR> <div> Publication of Quality Assurance of Seafood" by Carmine Gorga and Louis J. Ronsivalli under the AVI Books imprint has been announced by Van Nostrand Reinhold, 115 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003. Gorga is a fisheries consultant and Ronsivalli, retired, was a director of the NMFS Gloucester Technological Laboratory in Massachusetts. The book is published in three parts: I, assurance of seafood supply; II, assurance of seafood quality; and 3, administration and economics of quality assurance.</div> <bR> <div> The authors stress that seafood quality assurance is not the same as seafood quality control; the former is a guarantee, and they use this book to provide a step-by-step review and discussion of the attitudes and steps that need to be adopted to guarantee the ultimate arbiter--the consumer--high quality fresh fish and fillets (shellfish or such products as canned, pickled, cured, or dried fish are not addressed). The book is suited for a broad audience, and it explains the various procedures in terms easily understood by processors, fishermen, as well as market owners and the consumers.</div> <bR> <div> Part I presents general information on the values of seafoods, strategies for assuring the seafood supply, and the role of the U. S. government in the process. Part 2 then goes into seafood quality--how it is defined and measured, and how, why, and how fast seafood quality deteriorates. Then the authors discuss how to assure high seafood quality, discussing the roles of the fishermen, processors, retailers, and the consumers. Chapters in part 3 then outline the planning, administration, and coordination needed to assure high quality seafoods as well as the economics and economic benefits therein. Appendices discuss fish lipids, effects of decreasing temperature on the physical state of water in fish tissue, importance of accurately measuring seafood quality, spoilage rates of seafood, and provide formulae for the determination of gross profit margins and some specific costs. Indexed, the 245-page hardbound volume is available from the publisher for $42.95.</div> <bR> <div> COPYRIGHT 1989 U.S. Department of Commerce</div> <bR> <div> <B>A review for Amazon Books</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>by Carmine Gorga and Louis J. Ronsivalli, </B></div> <div> <B>Two Authors in Search of a Reader</B>, November 15, 2003 </div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="631" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="7"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="19" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="7" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="617"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="19" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="617" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> When in need, one goes into a book, obtains information regarding specific facts and ideas, and gets out of it. That is one way we encourage our readers to use our book. There are plenty of facts and ideas in it. There are schedules of quality for fresh and frozen fish that have proved useful even in a court of law. There are reported in this book many ideas and techniques that we explored in the course of our laboratory and empirical work. There are even a couple of ideas that are still at the level of theory: one is the idea of freezing products while in flight at high altitude; the other is the idea of the FrioTube. Why waste energy, when using freezing air-while in the air-will achieve your purpose? Boeing Aircraft Corporation had so much interest in this solution that its engineers provided designs for necessary modifications to a Boeing 747 and for appropriate insulated containers. Why refrigerate a whole room, when only the product needs to be kept refrigerated? </div> <bR> <div> More important still, the book contains a description of the most accurate method of measuring fish quality that has ever been used. The method contains an experimental integration of time and temperature factors. We proved the accuracy of our method, not only in laboratory experiments, but also through a large scale experiment in which the quality of fish fillets exported to a European market did indeed arrive in a state of high quality under the recommended shipping conditions. Because of the accuracy of the method, it was possible to develop a device for determining the shelf life of fresh fish fillets at any refrigerated temperature. This method guided our work, yielded the expected results, and built confidence in our suggestions to the seafood industry and especially to the American supermarkets-which until then had refused to carry fresh seafood in their stores. </div> <bR> <div> Within a year of the start of this work, which involved only one seafood producer and two supermarkets, the procedure spread to fifteen states. Retail sales of high quality seafood skyrocketed more than 500%. Today, one can find fresh seafood in the remotest parts of the American hinterland. And fresh seafood transfers vital health ingredients to the consumer. </div> <bR> <div> There is a second level of readership of our book that we would like to encourage. This consists of getting into the spirit and the letter of the argument for quality assurance of seafood, and investigating what other improvements can be brought to the field. We would certainly welcome such readers-even when they might borrow the book from a friend or a library. Not to spoil the suspense, we are not going to repeat the argument here. But we cannot refrain ourselves from giving only one not-too-subtle hint: Soon after WW II, the famed consultant, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, helped create the Japanese economic "miracle" by infusing the idea of quality assurance into that society. </div> <div> Most of all, in fact, we would welcome the reader who takes the mental procedures we present in the book and applies them to any other field of endeavor. Should not shoemakers or carmakers assure the quality of their product to the consumer? They most certainly should. The subtitle we had to our manuscript is: A Proposed National Mission. To insist on the point, just keep in mind that Japan was a defeated nation on its knees once, but paid much attention to a program of quality assurance. Japan took it to heart and in the span of a couple of decades became one of the leading industrial nations in the world. </div> <bR> <div> Happy reading! Work hard to implement these ideas. Develop new ones. Be of service. Make a bundle. </div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>