Adding More Value to ASME

Happy anniversary, ASME. What a heritage — 125 years of setting the standards, of engineering excellence as a forum for knowledge, community and advocacy, of advancing professional achievement for the benefit of humanity. Most notably, the lifeblood of ASME is our Codes and Standards activities, as well as our technical and education products and services. Our successes have been impressive, and we have enjoyed the prestige of a vital engineering society in a technology-driven, global, economic environment.

During the past year, we established five strategic objectives: to become more relevant to the early-career engineers; to stay relevant to industry, government and academia; to attract individuals with multidisciplinary skills; to allocate our resources more effectively; and to continue to become a more global organization.

Our commitment to these objectives will be achieved by program prioritization, budgetary realignment and more effective communications. In the process, we will be smarter about decision making and supporting innovation and optimum resource allocation.

ASME is vigorously meeting the challenges of a dynamic, complex world that requires adaptation, agility and responsiveness. We are now in Phase II of transforming ASME through the Continuity and Change (C&C) Initiative. This month, newly organized Sectors will prioritize our programs based on ASME strategic priorities. Sector recommendations will be reviewed by the Summit Team, which consists of senior vice presidents and associated senior staff, as well as finance committee representation.

The Summit Team will establish enterprise-wide priorities, using Sector recommendations. The enterprise-wide priorities will be the basis for fiscal year 2006 budgeting by the Summit Team and the Committee on Finance and Investments. Thus, ASME will reverse our traditional planning and budgeting cycle, by putting program planning first, followed by budgeting.

By transforming ASME, we are adding value for our current and future members. We are adding value for our customers in academia, government and industry. Using project management to cut across traditional constituency-based silos will help us develop opportunities and issues in new ways. We are opening up new communities of interest that can be geographical, technical or that share other affinities. Members can more easily support their interests and participate on numerous levels, depending on personal interests.

Recognizing technological change, we are changing our culture, our ways of interacting. Still, every advance comes from ASME's volunteers, from your desire and your commitment to the profession and your personal career choices.

As we celebrate the organization we love, as we enjoy the legacies of those who have come before us during Founders Day on Feb. 16 and other celebrations throughout this anniversary year, I ask you to recommit yourselves to ASME and to the profession. ASME excels at setting the standards on many fronts, and our commitment is to continue this legacy.

— Harry Armen
ASME President

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