Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): OUHK Testing and Certification Day 2013

2013年10月26日星期六

OUHK Testing and Certification Day 2013

The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) organized the 2nd "Testing and Certification Day" to align with the Government's strategy and to drive the development of Testing and Certification (T&C) industry. It aimed to increase public awareness and understanding of the industry from an engineering perspective. Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) is one of the supporting organizations of the “Testing & Certification Day”. I represented HKSQ to attend the seminar named "Testing and Certification: From an Engineering Perspective" and I summarized this seminar for sharing below.

In the beginning, Prof. Danny Wong (Acting President, OUHK) gave an opening speech. He mentioned the importance of cooperation among government, industry and academic and introduced OUHK courses from Chemistry & Biology to Engineering.

Then Prof. Wong and Prof. Ho presented a Honourable Professor to Ir. Dr. Hon Lo Wai Kwok (Member, Legislative Council - Engineering Constituency).

Souvenirs presentation and group photo

The first speaker was Ir. Dr. Hon Lo Wai Kwok and his presentation entitled "Testing and Certification - Why Hong Kong?". Dr. Lo said know-how was important but know-why should be identified first.

In the beginning, Dr. Lo briefed the background and statistics about T&C industry. Then he quoted some news report such as "Shenzhen residents generate US$3 billion annual sales in Hong Kong due to fear about product safety". Visitor spending in retails had been playing a notable role, and was especially vital at the time of economic downturns. Dr. Lo found three reasons why mainland tourists shop in Hong Kong. It was mainly due to "Lower Prices", "Quality Assurance" and a "Wider and More Exclusive Range of Products" being offered with better service.

After that Dr. Lo mentioned our strength in T&C Industry below.
1. High level of integrity and credibility
2. Good intellectual property protection
3. Robust accreditation system
4. Gateway to China
5. Good logistics support and communication system
6. Well established education and training system
Finally, he used 5 I's of competitive advantages of Hong Kong to conclude his speech. There were International, Information, Integration, Innovation and Integrity.

The second speaker was Ir. Raymond Wong (Member, Industry Training Advisory Committee (ITAC) of Testing, Inspection and Certification Industry, Qualifications Framework" and his presentation topic was "Introduction to the Specification of Competency Standards (SCS) for Testing, Inspection & Certification (TIC) Industry".

Ir. Raymond Wong introduced 7-level hierarchy of Hong Kong Qualification Framework (QF) which covered the academic, vocational and continuing education & training sectors. TIC is one of 19 ITACs and it established on 15 August 2010. Ir. Raymond Wong brifed the SCS consisted of competencies (skills and knowledge) which were grouped and presented in the form of Units of Competencies (UoCs). UoC was based on "Generic Level Descriptors (GLD)" under the QF. The first draft TIC SCS completed around 240 UoCs from seven major functional areas (i.e. Testing Operations (TEO), Testing Quality Management (TQM), Inspection Operations (INO), Inspection Quality Management (IQM), Certification Operations (CEO), Certification Quality Management (CQM) and Operations Management (OM)).

The following table showed one of UoC as an example.

The third speaker was Ir. Felix Chan (Vice Chairman, Hong Kong Association for Testing, Inspection and Certification (HKTIC)) and his presentation title named "The Recent Development in the Testing, Inspection & Certification Industry". Firstly, Ir. Felix Chan briefed the growing and emerging needs in some testing & certification trades. He said 87% of the business receipts of private independent establishments in 2008 were related to testing of textiles, clothing and footwear; toys and games; electrical products; and medical testing.

Then he selected the building and construction growing markets of TIC and there were 55% growth from 2009 to 2013 (4 years). After that he introduced the development of human resources for the industry that HKTIC Professional Certification Scheme for Testing Personnel (PCSTP) has established since 2011.

Ir. Joseph YW Mak (Chief Structural Engineer, Development and Construction Division, Housing Department) was the forth speaker and his topic named "Construction Product Certification in Hong Kong Housing Authority". Ir. Joseph Mak said Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) had been spearheading the development and implementation of Product Certification for Building & Construction Material in Hong Kong. They considered QA of building products manufactured off site as equally important as quality supervision of construction works on site.

Then Ir. Joseph Mak introduced 8 measures in construction contracts to assure product quality included ISO 9001 certification, Sample Submission for prior approval, Surveillance Check, Quarantine Testing, Verification upon On-site delivery, Performance Assessment Scoring System (PASS) assessment, RFID for traceability and Product Certification (Upstream QA measure). The following diagrams showed the 6 stages implementation of building product certification.

Ir. Sam MS Choi (Electrical & Mechanical Engineer, EMSD - Energy Efficiency Office) was the fifth speaker and his presentation was "Hong Kong Energy Efficiency Labelling Scheme". Firstly, Ir. Sam Choi introduced the Labelling Scheme separated into voluntary and mandatory schemes.

Then he briefed how to interpret different labels for different products. The level 1 was indicated the most efficient using less energy. (For more information: www.energylabel.emsd.gov.hk ) The testing requirement for Energy Efficiency Labelling Scheme needed to be performed by HOKLAS accredited laboratory or equivalent.

The sixth speaker was Ir. Alain Tang (Chairman, HKIE - Control, Automation & Instrumentation Division) and his talk named "Route to HKIE Membership". He introduced different disciplines of HKIE and briefed its history.

Ir. Alain Tang mentioned the career path of typical professional engineers between private company and government department.

Dr. George HK Lau (Asso. Professor & Programme Leader (Testing & Certification), School of Science and Technology, OUHK) was the last speaker and his topic entitled "Ways to Become a Testing and Certification Professional". Dr. Lau mentioned that T&C Industry had still stated in the 2013 Policy Address.

Then Dr. Lau briefed T&C Industry characteristic in this few years, career pathway through QF and some knowledge requirement. There were two professional certification scheme from HKTIC and HKSQ. OUHK had two courses accredited by HKSQ under Certified Laboratory Quality Specialist (CLabQS). They were TCS 371: Product Certification and Laboratory Accreditation Practices and TCS 811F: Laboratory Management and Accreditation (http://www.hksq.org/acourselist.htm). (HKSQ has launched the scheme named "Certified Laboratory Quality Specialist (CLabQS)" since 2009 and history details at http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2011/07/hksq-certified-professional-scheme.html)