Asiaization is the Future of Quality

Asianization (亞洲化) will be a key force of the "Future of Quality". Asian Network for Quality (ANQ), has established since 2002, will take a significant role to contributing to the world economic development through improving quality . Unit now, there are seventeen organization members, two affiliated members and one partner organization (with 18 countries or economic areas). ANQ seeks to improve quality of human life by contributing to the progress of science and technology; and operates following the ANQ Way which is a set of principles included "Harmony in Diversity", "Mutual Respect and Compassion", "Austere and Simple Living" and "Effective and Efficient Use of Abundant Resources". The following map showed the distribution of ANQ members.

According to ASQ Future of Quality studies, globalization has identified as one of key forces since 1996. Then globalization ranked top three key forces in 2005 (No. 1), 2008 (No. 1) and 2011 (No. 3), respectively. Globalization (全球化) is the process of international business integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, services, ideas, and other aspects of culture. However, different businesses included manufacturing products and services provision will implant in different places because of globalization, so that localization becomes very significant. Localization (本地化) is the process of adapting a product or service to a particular language, culture, and desired local "look-and-feel." Since the global economic direction changed from West to East, the localization process becomes Asianization. Asianization (亞洲化) is an action, process, or result of doing or making Asia-like; implying Asia culture and habit will be more and more important in the world. The following table showed ASQ Future of Quality Studies from 1996 to 2011.

Why Asia become a key area in the world? For instance, BRIC (金磚四國) was coined by Jim O'Neill in 2001 through his paper named "Building Better Global Economic BRICs". It is a grouping acronym that refers to the countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which are all deemed to be at a similar stage of newly advanced economic development. And then Kenichi Ohmae (Strategist and future-trend guru) predicted a huge of currency will flow into VITAMIN (維他命十國) included Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, Iran, Iraq and Nigeria in 2012. Both BRIC and VITAMIN involved some Asia countries. Therefore, I prepare some charts compared GDP and Population among USA, European Union, BRIC and VITAMIN as well as among USA, European Union and ANQ countries. It was found that GDP separated into the three similar portion around 20% to 30% of world GDP. Moreover, ANQ Countries' GDP and Population is observed larger than USA, European and "BRIC plus VITAMIN", individually.

Therefore, I predict that Asianization (亞洲化) will be ranked top three key forces in next ASQ Future of Quality Studies in 2014.

Appendix:
The following tables summarized the data included GDP, GDP per capita, Population and Public Debt for analysis.

Reference:
Kenichi Ohmae - 大前研一 《大資金潮》 - VITAMIN (維他命十國)
GDP data from Google Search (e.g. XXX GDP in 2012; where XXX is country name) & Wikipedia
The global debt clock - http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock
ANQ - http://www.anforq.org/

Remarks: (Change from Asiaization to Asianization on 17 Feb 2016)
The gross world product (GWP) is the combined gross national product of all the countries in the world. Because imports and exports balance exactly when considering the whole world, this also equals the total global gross domestic product (GDP). The Gross World Product (GWP) is to combine Gross National Product (GNP) of all the countries in the world. Nominal GWP (billions) = USD71,830 billion in 2012
Collectively, the G8 nations comprise 50.1% of 2012 global nominal GDP
(G8 = France, United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada.)

(In the American system one billion is 1,000,000,000 and a trillion is 1,000,000,000,000 so one trillion is one thousand times one billion.) (In Chinese, billion is 十億 and trillion is 兆.)

The European Union (EU) reached its current size of 28 member countries with the accession of Croatia on 1 July 2013. EU included Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. (http://europa.eu/about-eu/countries/member-countries/)

Visit to Food Education Centre for preparing HKSQ Student Project Competition 2014

Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) has organized Company-based Student Project Competition annually. It aims to offer an opportunity for students to work on an actual industrial case and propose resolution. This allows them to gain experience of resolving an industrial problem. In 2012, Mr. Kwok Ming Cheung (Managing Director, Vital-Health Livestock Development Limited) sponsored the competition and found that valuable to the industry. This time, Mr. Kwok introduced us to Mr. Eddie WL CHAN (President & Chairman, Eduction Committee, Green Technology Consortium (GTC)) and Mr. Mawin CHEUNG (VP & Chairman, Public Affairs Committee, Green Technology Consortium (GTC)) for discussing the coming Student Project Competition 2014 topics included Food Waste Handling; as well as, further cooperation between HKSQ and GTC.

We visited the Food Education Centre in this morning (21 Sep 2013) and took a group photo.
(Right: Mr. Mawin Cheung, Mr. Eddie Chan, Mr. Kwok Ming Cheung, Dr. KS Chin, Mr. Karson Chui, Ms. Minda Chiang and Dr. Lotto Lai; Mr. Peter Fung is photographer.)

The map of the whole Centre contained different parties which operated together.

Then we visited the food waste recycling treatment facilities. The outcome was fertilizer. Mr. Kwok said it was suitable for farming (many minerals remaining) but not suitable for feed chicken because of heating treatment reduced most of nutrients.

The treatment line was for recycle food waste & food box from secondary school. Mr. Mawin Cheung told us the plant can handle the maximum capacity for food waste to be 50 tons per day. However, more than 3,200 tons of food waste was produced from our home, commercial and industrial sectors every day!

The only solution was reduced the food waste from the source. Then we visited the production line for animal feed supplement (25kg per bag).

Some products from food waste were introduced by Mr. Mawin Cheung. All containers and bags were bio-degradable.

Moreover, some environmental facilities for education purposes were briefed included solar energy panel, wind turbine, etc.

The Easy Organic Farming demonstrated their Food Cycle concepts.

Lastly, the environmental toilet was mentioned. The hand washing machine would re-generate the electricity for toilet use.

Environmental water-less urinal can adsorb a bad smell.

Reference:
HKSQ - www.hksq.org
Hong Kong Organic Waste Recycling Centre Limited - http://www.hkowrc.com/index.html
Green Technology Consortium - http://www.green-tech-consortium.org/

Mr. Kwok supported HKSQ activities:
HKSQ Company Based Student Project Competition - http://www.hksq.org/company_based_competition.htm
HKSQ Student Project Competition 2012 - Briefing Session - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2012/02/hksq-student-project-competition-2012.html
HKSQ Student Project Competition 2012 - Site Visit - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2012/02/hksq-student-project-competition-2012_25.html
HKSQ Student Project Competition 2012 – Presentation - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2012/03/hksq-student-project-competition-2012.html
Visit to Organic Farm in Hong Kong - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2011/11/visit-to-organic-farm-in-hong-kong.html

ASQ InfVoices – Sustaining Excellence through Quality and Innovation

The September Topic of ASQ Influential Voice was raised by Paul Borawski (CEO, ASQ) named "Sustaining Excellence for the Long Term". Paul introduced a success case study about Corning which is a manufacturer of industrial glass and ceramics products for almost 160 years. Then he asked “how do you stay on the right path amid changing times and leaders?”

When I learnt TQM in the past, I studied Kaizen and Re-engineering. The definition of Kaizen (改善) in Wikipedia is Japanese for "improvement", or "change for the better" refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, and business management. In Wikipedia, Business process re-engineering (BPR) is a business management strategy, originally pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and processes within an organization. The company usually involved both quality techniques and practices in their development journey and their product or service performance appeared S-curve. Quality improvement always works within the same product, service, system, etc. If you are not creative enough, your product, service and system will be matured and less competitive. In this time, company needs to have breakthrough in the existing technology, service technique or business model, so as to sustaining their excellence performance. TRIZ is one of innovation tools which is suitable for technology breakthrough (e.g. Samsung).

My suggestion for company that "Sustaining Excellence for the Long Term" could be achieved through Kaizen, BPR and TRIZ application to enhance Continuous Improvement and Innovation Breakthrough.

Reference:
Kaizen - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen
Business process re-engineering (BPR) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_reengineering

TRIZ related Training and Seminars:
MA TRIZ Certification Level 1 Training (Part 1) - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/04/ma-triz-certification-level-1-training.html
MA TRIZ Certification Level 1 Training (Part 2) - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/04/ma-triz-certification-level-1-training_27.html
20130824 - ISI Seminar & Summer Networking 2013 - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/08/isi-seminar-summer-networking-2013.html
20111202 - Seminar on Introduction to TRIZ - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2011/12/seminar-on-introduction-to-triz.html
20111122 - Seminar on Business Excellence with Innovative Improvements - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2011/11/seminar-on-business-excellence-with.html
20110413 - HKU Quality Management Student Forum - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2011/04/hku-quality-management-student-forum.html
20090822 - Innovation – From Art to Science - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2009/08/innovation-from-art-to-science.html
20090614 - Innovation / Creativity Management (BS 7000-1:2008) - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2009/06/innovation-creativity-management-bs.html

Parody Exemption Seminar (戲仿豁免研討會)

A Seminar entitled "Protection Derivative Works! Parody exemption Seminar (保護二次創作！戲仿豁免研討會)" was organized by Mr. Charles Mok (Legislative Council Member (IT Functional Constituency)) on 14 Sep 2013. Charles invited different speakers for this seminar as follows: (In Chinese)
- 商務及經濟發展局副秘書長 黃福來先生 (Commerce and Economic Development Bureau) http://www.cedb.gov.hk/about/index.htm
- 知識產權署助理署長 彭淑芬女士 (Intellectual Property Department) http://www.ipd.gov.hk/
- 香港大學法學院助理教授李雪菁小姐 (Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong) http://www.law.hku.hk/
- 香港獨立媒體倡議幹事方鈺鈞小姐 http://www.inmediahk.net/
- 二次創作權關注組代表胡先生（Concern Group of Rights of Derivative Works） https://zh-hk.facebook.com/DerivativeWorksHK
- 鍵盤戰線發言人 卡夫卡 (http://keyboardfrontline.blogspot.hk/)
- 國際版權保護協會(大中華區）執行長兼總經理 何偉雄先生 (International Federation Against Copyright Theft (Greater China) Limited)
- 香港互聯網協會網絡保安及私隱小組召集人 宋德嘉先生 (Internet Society Hong Kong (ISOC HK)) http://www.isoc.hk/category/internet-security-privacy/

In the beginning, Mr. Charles Mok (Legislative Council Member (IT Functional Constituency)) gave an introduction speech.

Group photos with guests

The first speakers were come from Commerce and Economic Development Bureau and Intellectual Property Department, they introduced the consultation papers to us.

Firstly, they briefed the background of the existing COPYRIGHT ORDINANCE (CAP 528) as following diagram (In Chinese).

After that they explained the content of consultation paper and separated the Parody and Derivative Works. They said Parody (戲仿) included Parody (戲仿作品) itself, Satire (諷刺作品), Caricature (滑稽作品) and Pastiche (模仿作品). After that they shared the foreign countries experience included Australia, Canada, England and America. Some of countries used "Fair Use" concept in Parody.

The consultation paper provided three options of changes as follows
Option 1 – Clarifying the existing general provisions for criminal sanction
(方案 1－澄清現時就刑事制裁所訂的一般條文)

Option 2 – Introducing a specific criminal exemption for parody
(方案 2 –為戲仿作品訂定具體的刑事豁免)

Option 3 – Introducing a fair dealing exception for parody
(方案 3－為戲仿作品訂定公平處理的版權豁免)

The following examples showed the potential legal responsibilities on different options.
1) Change drawing for T-shirt

2) Change commercial organizations poster

3) Change part of film (few minutes with new dialogue)

4) Change part of song (few minutes with new song lyric)

Then a discussion forum started. Some interested points were summarized as follows:
1) From legal point of view, it had better not stated too clear on exemption (or definitions) but stated clearly on civil liability for copyright infringement
2) Copyright representative said they welcome parody but worried about copyright infringement which would affect their survive.
3) Some Derivative Works creators worried about consent from the copyright owner.
4) The other team of creators worried about Prejudicial Distribution or Mass Distribution (大量分發)
5) “More than trivial” economic prejudice (“超乎輕微”的經濟損害) was most critical point which people concerned.
6) One of attendees asked if the Parody might cause economic loss of the company, did it still in exemption? (e.g. Using Hoi Tin Tong Guīlínggāo (海天堂龜苓膏) with mould as Parody)
7) Golden CEO shared that about 56% of brothers disagreed all options. The most agreed brothers were in option 2 or 3.

In my concept, free environment causes more creativity; creativity leads innovation (new idea could be applied); innovation creates new product, service or business model; those achievements need IP protection. However, too much on IP protection could affect free environment and reduces creativity. It seems in the dilemma.

After review all discussion, I supported to state clearly on civil liability for copyright infringement, remove “More than trivial” economic prejudice, and consider to protect Derivative Works which was found not necessary belongs to Parody. Finally, I would like to use Wikinomics concepts as conclusion that involved Openness 「開放」、 Peering 「合作」、 Sharing「分享」 and Acting Globally「全球化的觀念」.

Reference:
保護二次創作！戲仿豁免研討會 - https://www.facebook.com/events/400504376739554/
戲仿作品公眾諮詢文件要點 - http://www.ipd.gov.hk/chi/intellectual_property/copyright/key_point_of_consultation_paper_on_Parody.pdf
戲仿諮詢文件 - http://www.cedb.gov.hk/citb/doc/tc/Consultation_Paper_Chinese.pdf
English version: http://www.cedb.gov.hk/citb/doc/en/Consultation_Paper_English.pdf
維基經濟學的思索 (Contemplation of Wikinomics) - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2008/04/contemplation-of-wikinomics.html

HKSQ Tour to Heritage Sites of Central District

The visit named "Tour to Heritage Sites of Central District" organized by Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) on 14th Sep 2013. The Central District has been developed as the core of Victoria City since the inception of the British rule in the 19th Century (1841). Buildings of the western style then sprung up. There are a total of 42 historical buildings and sites in Central District. Many of these buildings have been demolished and replaced by modern ones. Paying visits to these buildings and sites will help visitors to recall the former glories of past landmarks of the Central District (Victoria City). The visit aimed that members forgot their routine work and spend half a day to take a relaxed walk to understand the history and culture of our City and our community

Before started the tour, Mr. CP Chow (Former Chairman, HKSQ) as our tour guide and explained the travel agenda.

Then we took a group photo.

The first location was Statue Square (皇后像廣場) and CP introduced the old post-box (郵筒) with two doors. There were only two of the specific post-box in Hong Kong.

Then we visited Old Supreme Court (former Legislative Council Building) 舊最高法院（前立法會大樓） and its building styles were discussed. The title “ERECTED AD MDCCCCX” was observed and the last number means 1910 (where M=1000, D=500, C=100 and X=10). We suspected why don’t use MCMX.

Foundation Stone in Chater Garden (在遮打花園的奠基石) was explained.

Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) history was briefed where the bronze sculpture of Sir Thomas Jackson Bart who was Chief Manager from 1870 to 1902 were stand in the Square. After that CP explained the bronze lion story and we observed the bullet holes on the lion body during Japan Invasion. The Lion opened its mouth named “Stephen” and the other one closed its mouth named “Stitt”.

Then we visit the Old Bank of China Building and saw another type of Lions.

Cute style lions were in another side of the Old Bank of China Building.

Former French Mission Building (Court of Final Appeal) (前法國外方傳道會大樓（終審法院）) was briefed.

We also visited St. John’s Cathedral (聖約翰座堂) and CP explained its history. (More information at http://www.stjohnscathedral.org.hk/ )

At the end, we visit the Duddell Street Steps and Gas Lamps (using Town Gas) (都爹利街石階及煤氣路燈). Minda and I took a photo in the street steps.

CP mentioned the Gas Lamps (using Town Gas) and its height design story.

After the tour, we had a lunch together in restaurant.

Reference:
HKSQ - http://www.hksq.org/
The historical development of Sheung Wan Hong Kong Island for the past 100 years
- Seminar (港島上環區百年變遷講座) http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/01/the-historical-visit-to-sheung-wan-hong.html
- Visit (港島上環區百年變遷考察) http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/01/the-historical-development-of-sheung.html

ESG Customer Strategy Seminar - How to Increase Customer Satisfaction and Reduce Costs Simultaneously

The topic of September seminar in Executive Study Group (ESG) entitled “Customer Satisfaction: How to Increase Customer Satisfaction and Reduce Costs Simultaneously” which was held by the ESG, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corp (HKSTPC) on 13 September 2013. I would like to summarize the seminar for sharing below.

Firstly, Dr. Mark Lee introduced the content of seminar included "Relation between Customer Experience and Loyalty", "Customer Service as a Hygiene Factor", "Make It Easy by Removing Obstacles", "5 Strategies for Effortless Customer Experience" and "Group Discussion".

Dr. Mark Lee explained a common misconception that companies must "delight" their customers. It was too hard to delight customers. We should pay more sensitive to unhappy customers experience. It was because 65% of customers would likely speak negatively. Dr. Lee named it to be the Bad-Service Ripple Effect.

Dr. Lee mentioned that customer service as a Hygiene Factor which did not give positive satisfaction, though dissatisfaction results from their absence. The diagram showed that it was a little marginal different in average loyalty score in exceed expectations. However, the loyalty score drop significantly if service was below expectations (Underperform). Customers were four times more likely to leave a service interaction disloyal than loyal.

Then Dr. Lee used Loyalty Curve to explain how to "Make It Easy" by removing obstacles. He said "You exceeded my expectations" was wrong loyalty goal, indicating that the normal distribution curve shift to right. The correct loyalty goal should be "You made it easy" that changing the shape of distribution from disloyal to neutral. (Simply: Remove obstacles -> Effortless)

Then Dr. Lee introduced five Strategies for "Effortless" Customer Experience. In short terms were "Anticipation", "Emotional Handling", "Minimize Channel", "Reduce Effort" and "Effortless Experience".

1. Don't just resolve the current issue - anticipate the next one
Dr. Lee measured first-contact-resolution (FCR) scores that could reduce the effort if they performed one more step which could be identified through Data Mining from customer interaction data. For Bell Canada case, they defined Event-Clusters and trained its representatives not only to resolve the customer's primary issue, but also to anticipate and address common downstream issues.

2. Arm Representatives to address the "emotional" side of customer interactions
Dr. Lee briefed the basic instruction to handle customers was to eliminate many interpersonal issues / remove emotion obstacles. For UK-based Mortgage Company, they quickly assessed whether they were talking to customer belong to "controller", "thinker", "feeler" or "entertainer" within 10s. Then they used different strategies to handle them.

3. Minimize channel switching by increasing self-service channel "stickiness"
Dr. Lee said company should guide customers to the channel which would suit them best. For instance, website's on-line support had simple step-by-step instructions.

4. Use feedback from disgruntled or struggling customers to reduce customer effort
Discover more obstacles through unhappy customers and then trained company representatives to focus first on resolving the customers' issues.

5. Empower the front line to deliver an Effortless experience.
Dr. Lee used Ameriprise Financial case to explain empower the front line staff to identify outdated policy through capturing the NO's. Finally, the company modified or eliminated 26 outdated policies and savings US$1.2 million.

Finally, Dr. Lee concluded that Effortless Customer Experience reduced Disloyalty. Companies should focus on making service easier, not more delightful, by reducing the amount of work required of customers to get their issues resolved.

Before the group discussion, Dr. Lee used NLP method to give us an exercise to choose Two of the most difficult strategies and One of the easiest strategy.

Reference:
The Centre for Logistics Technologies and Supply Chain Optimization, CUHK - http://www.logitsco.cuhk.edu.hk/
HKSTP - www.hkstp.org