2009年1月10日星期六

Quality in Outsourcing

Outsourcing is one of popular quality topics in this year. Mr. Govind Ramu was invited by HKSQ to present a seminar “Quality in Outsourcing” on 10 Jan 09 and the summary is shown as follows.


The Chairman of HKSQ, Dr. Albert Tsang, gave an opening speech and introduced Mr. Govind Ramu. Mr. Ramu is an ASQ Fellow and holds six ASQ certifications including certification for quality manager, quality engineer, Six Sigma Black Belt, quality auditor, software quality engineer and reliability engineer. He has serviced in the quality related functions in different countries since 1985.

Govind introduced “What is Outsouring?” and terminology used for outsourcing. Few of them are given as follows:
i) Outsourcing is the transfer of products, services, and business processes to an external service provider.
ii) Outsourcing involves contracting with an outsourcing partner, which may or may not involve offshoring.
iii) Other terms used in the outsourcing world are “multisourcing”, “nearshoring”, etc.


His second question was “Why Outsourcing?” Four factors were considered:
i) Significantly reduce overall costs.
ii) Reduce “Time to Volume” (TTV) for new products.
iii) Access to an abundance of human resources, localized skills and knowledge, etc.
iv) Supply chain efficiencies when products are shipped directly to customers (Drop Ship) – which related to Lean.

Then he asked “What Does Quality have to do with outsourcing?” He mentioned Quality is applicable to the overall process of creating products and/or services, which all aspects of outsourcing are considered. Without due diligence and appropriate controls, outsourcing could end up being costlier than in-house manufacturing or service, and customer dissatisfaction. Moreover, he stated ISO 9001:2008 version concerned the control over outsourced processes.


After that, he introduced six categories of “Quality in outsourcing BoK” as follows:




i) Quality in Project Management
· Scope Creep, Risk Management & Lessons Learned
· Challenges: IP Protection
ii) Quality in Team Management
· Managing multicultural team and their roles & responsibilities
· RACI or RASCI (Who responsible? Who accountable? Who to be consulted? Who to be informed? Who to be supporter?)
· Challenges: Team Attribute and Virtual Teams
iii) Quality in Communications Management
· Avoid the lost out of listening (using active listening)
· Challenges: Technical Interpretation & Virtual Teams
iv) Quality in Knowledge Management
· Structured Approach: DIKW Chain-the-metaphorical (Link, pace & node of transfer)
· Challenges: Tacit Knowledge (Encourage documenting tacit knowledge by driving out fear)
v) Quality in Supply Chain Management
· Supplier Selection, Performance, Improvement & Service Level Agreement (SLA)
· Challenges: IP Protection
vi) Quality in Engineering Management
· Business Model; Traceability-record Retention and Third Party Surveillance
· Challenges: Failure Cost

During Q&A question, participants were actively involved. “What is the different between outsourcing partner and supplier?” was raised. Two-way communication with outsourcing partner is a crucial factor for success when supplier may be only order taken and product delivered.



Further, a participant (Aaron, HKSQ ex-chairman) shared his opinion to get outsourcing activities success:
i) Avoid to develop competitors via outsourcing partner
ii) Require contingency plan for outsourcing project
iii) Be the major client of the outsourcing partner so as to get the best services
iv) Implement information security system for protection IP
v) Get single source but not sole source
vi) Always keep core competency in your company


Finally, Dr. Albert Tsang presented a souvenir to the speaker for his great presentation.


After the seminar, HKSQ ex-co members had a lunch with Mr. G. Ramu together.


Reference: (Speaker’s paper)
Govindarajan Ramu (2008) “IN THE Know – A BoK dedicated to quality in outsourcing is essential in today’s global marketplace” Quality Progress, Vol.41, Issue 8, pp.36 – 43.

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