Quality Management makes people and organization SMARTER

We are honor to invite Prof. Yoshinori Iizuka (Professor Emeritus, The University of Tokyo) to give us a seminar named "Quality Management makes people and organization SMARTER" on 26 Nov 2013 as one of HKSQ World Quality Month activities. Prof. Iizuka explained why you and your organization to come smarter when seriously learnt quality management and master the theory and practice of quality management.

Dr. Albert Tsang (Former Chairman, HKSQ) gave a welcome speech and introduced Prof. Yoshinori Iizuka to our members.

In the beginning, Prof. Iizuka mentioned if you learn Quality Management, you become Smarter!. He used Donut phenomenon to explain quality management neglecting quality. After that Prof. Iizuka described what were "Smart" people like. He was not talking about "Good memory", "Sharp" and "Excellent Understanding" because these abilities were inherited. The smartness was defined to have four abilities that were "Purpose-oriented", "Cause and effect", "Essence" and "Learning".

Prof. Iizuka also shared an interview with healthcare professional. Medical experts asked why is quality about customer satisfaction. Prof. Iizuka quoted Zen dialogue* to express the idea that any business (including medical practice) is meaningless unless someone recognizes it or unless the customer considers it good. (*Zen dialogue: In a forest with nobody in it, a tree fell with a noise. Can you say there was a noise? It means nothing can exist unless someone recognizes it.)

Finally, Prof. Iizuka concluded that Smartness factors were very closed to Quality approach. Moreover, TQM is an excellent management tool for organizational improvement and innovation.

Q& A Session
Some interested questions were come from our members.
1) If patients did not know the treatment was good for them or not, but he was satisfied because of beautiful nurse. Why is quality about customer satisfaction? If the quality means on medical treatment.
2) If the failure was not able to repeat, so how do we identify the root clause? Prof. Iizuka said it must deeply understand of processes and have technology knowledge.

Mr. Karson Chui (Chairman, HKSQ) presented a souvenir to Ir. Daniel Ng.

After the seminar, we had a dinner in Hotel ICON of PolyU for italian food.

Reference:
HKSQ - www.hksq.org
The presentation is available at http://www.hksq.org/slide.htm
Hotel IC of PolyU - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_GsyyNhO7E