ASQ InfVoices – Evolution of ‘Made in Hong Kong’

Responding to Laurel Nelson-Rowe (ASQ managing director) article in ASQ Influential Voice named “What Does “Made In…” Mean To You?” I would like to talk about Made in Hong Kong and its evolution. Manufacturing in Hong Kong (See Reference) stated the history of Hong Kong’s Industrialization. In the past, I remembered our Industrial Department arranged Quality Week (since 1995, but I don't know when it stopped). HKSQ Founder – Mr. Warner Yeh (Founding Chairman) was one of members in the ‘brains’ behind Quality Week.

During 1980s, Hong Kong is the labour-intensive industries and some famous local brands appeared. I quoted one of brands “Red A” which produced many plastic commodity products.

In 1994, CMA celebrated the 60th anniversary and performed the “Local Industrial Exhibition” (工展會) in Hong Kong annually. After Quality Evolution in many years, “Made in Hong Kong” means “Quality”, “Integrity” and “Safety” (especially compared with “Made in China”).

Hong Kong changed from Industry sector to Service sector; many different government departments promote different items in Hong Kong as follows:
1) Invested in Hong Kong – InvestHK established in July 2000. InvestHK’s vision is to strengthen Hong Kong’s status as the leading international business location in Asia.

2) Created in Hong Kong – Create Hong Kong (CreateHK) as an office dedicated to promoting the development of creative industries in Hong Kong was set up under the Communications and Technology Branch of the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau in June 2009. CreateHK’s vision is to build Hong Kong into a regional creative capital.

 

3) Tested in Hong Kong, Certified in Hong Kong – Hong Kong Council for Testing and Certification (HKCTC) was established in September 2009 and then the council submitted a report to government with recommendations to promote further development of the industry on 31 March 2010. In this report, the slogan “Tested in Hong Kong, Certified in Hong Kong” was employed.

4) Startup at Hong Kong – iStartup@HK is a comprehensive one-stop portal with mobile apps for tech startups, is an initiative of the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) since 2014. iStartup@HK is positioned as a virtual pitching and networking platform for tech startups where they can showcase their products and company profile, bridging the gap between startups and potential investors.

5) Innovated in Hong Kong – I added this at the last one. Because Hong Kong government is going to establish Innovation and Technology Bureau in 2015. I hope the Bureau could consolidate resource from all innovation and technology related government departments, universities, R&D centres and Industries together to enhance the new economic environment; so as to follow China Mega Plan on “One Belt One Road” and “Made in China 2025”, as well as, facing to the era of Industry 4.0.

(Remark: HKSQ had prepared a suggestion report to the Innovation and Technology Industry. It will publish in HKSQ website soon.)

Reference:
Manufacturing in Hong Kong - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_Hong_Kong
“Red A” – Star Industrial Co., Ltd. - http://www.reda.com.hk/AboutUs.aspx
InvestHK - http://www.investhk.gov.hk/index.html
CreateHK - http://www.createhk.gov.hk/en/home.htm
Briefing Forum on Report of HKCTC - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2010/05/briefing-forum-on-report-of-hkctc.html
iStartup@HK - https://istartup.gov.hk/index.php
HKSQ’s Quality Publication - http://www.hksq.org/qua_pub.htm

ASQ InfVoices – Creating a Performance Culture

Mr. James Lawther (ASQ Influential Voice) was invited to post article as the Aug Topic of ASQ Influential Voice named "Creating a Performance Culture: What Not To Do". I agreed his point of view and quoted that “Cuture Eats strategy for breakfast” from Peter Drucker and “Drive out fear” by W. Edwards Deming. At the end, Mr. James Lawther would like us to discuss “What are you “dos” and “don’ts” of creating a performance culture?”
(Photo: Almost all HKSQ exco members attended the annual strategy meeting on last Saturday, indicating our commitment and performance culture.)

The first idea come into my mind of poor performance which caused by “Psychological Inertia”. People don’t like “Change”! I wrote an article before named “ASQ InfVoices - Law of Organizational Motion” which using Newton's laws described the organization behavior as follows:

- Newton's First Law: When an organization is steady or be moving to one direction, it is very different to change their state or direction again. It is similar to the Inertia of a body. The bigger the organization is (Mass↑), the more difficult it changes (Inertia↑).

- Newton's Second Law: When you would like to change organizational practice or direction, you need a force internally or externally. Internal force is come from top management and external force is come from market/stakeholder/interested parties. If we would like to accelerate that change, we need to increase the force.

- Newton's Third Law: Sometime too much force to change organization practice will cause bad results such as strike.

The second idea is to understand organization AS-IS culture first. In 2013, Mr. Kitson Leonard Lee who is Honorary Secretary of Singapore Quality Institute (SQI) gave a talk to HKSQ members and the topic entitled “Building a Culture of Service Excellence”. The Cultural Values Assessment (CVA) was the culture assessment tool which was developed from Maslow's Needs to Barrett's Consciousness.

The 7 Levels of Organizational Consciousness was identified and Mr. Kitson Leonard Lee said that culture of organization was a reflection of the values and beliefs of the current leaders. So cultural transformation began from personal transformation.

Recently, my division performed “Team Synergy and Creative Problem Solving Workshop”. The trainer employed DiSC Personality Profile to let us know our colleagues’ characteristic. The trainer separated us into four groups based on our character we think. Firstly, he asked us to separate into two groups between Active (A) and Passive (P). After that each group separated again into Task-oriented (T) or People-oriented (P). Then the four group would be AT – Dominant (D), AP – Influencing (I), PT – Compliant (C), and PP – Steady (S). Their characteristics were summarized in the following table.

Therefore, I believe to establish Performance Culture. The first step is to understand yourself and your colleagues (meaning AS-IS organization culture). The second step is using the Culture Transform Tools (CTT) to enhance the Performance (meaning TO-BE organization culture). The last step is using CVA to assess again for improvement. It is a PDCA cycle for culture development.

Reference:
20131203: ASQ InfVoices - Law of Organizational Motion - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/12/asq-infvoices-law-of-organizational.html
20131224: HKSQ Seminar on Building a Culture of Service Excellence - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/12/hksq-seminar-on-building-culture-of.html
20150714: Team Synergy and Creative Problem Solving Workshop - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2015/07/team-synergy-and-creative-problem.html

HKSQ Seminar on Strategic Management by Policy (SMBP)

The seminar entitled “Seminar on Strategic Management by Policy (SMBP) – Integration of Strategic Planning and Policy Management” was organized by Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) and co-organized with SEEM Dept., CityU & ASQ-HK on 22nd Aug 2015. The seminar aimed to introduce SMBP which is integrated management tool of strategic planning and operations management through policy management.

In the beginning, Dr. KS Chin (Former Chairman, HKSQ) introduced HKSQ background and the guest speaker Prof. Hiroshi Osada. Prof. Osada was a Professor in Bunkyo University, and Professor Emeritus of Tokyo Institute of Technology. He is awarded the Deming Prize (JUSE) for individuals in 2009, QC Prize (JUSE) in 1989, 2000 & 2002, Quality Technology Price (JSQC) in 2000, 2002 & 2005, and Shainin Medal (ASQ) in 2015.

Firstly, Prof. Hiroshi Osada briefed “What’s new in Quality Innovation” and he reviewed Toyota to be global No.1 automanufacturer in 2008 and 2012-2014. At that time, Toyota created value for stakeholder. However, Toyota met big troubles in 2009 and 2010 because of design quality problem (defect in the Prius braking system). He raised Strategic Approach for Continuous Innovation (Radical, Incremental) was needed. Integrated strategic and innovation by scientific methods (TQM, Six Sigma) were proposed.

Then Prof. Osada discussed management subjects in 21st century. He said sustainable growth needed Value Creation (value for customer, society, employee, business partner & shareholder). In order to survive in mega competition, we needed differentiation of our product (Creativity) and optimum resource allocation (Focus) which was Value Capturing.

Prof. Osada introduced his proposed Management System Model from Driver, Enabler to Performance and then through feedback loop to complete the PDCA cycle.  He also explained how SMBP worked as Innovation (Breakthrough) tool. In daily management, it had control items for maintenance or improvement. By using policy (SMBP), it could enhance the overall quality level.

After that Prof. Osada explained SMBP was “Strategic Planning (S7 – Strategic Seven Tools)” plus “Management by Policy (MBP)”. The following diagram showed component of SMBP. He said the process of establishing business strategy must be made to match MBP on a practical level.

The Strategic Seven Tools (S7) was briefed below.
1. Environmental Analysis (Weighing the attractions of the industry)
2. Product Analysis (Benchmarking products)
3. Market Analysis (Attracting users)
4. Product-Market Analysis (Comprehending competition and positioning)
5. Product Portfolio Analysis (PPM)
6. Strategic Elements Analysis (Determine strategic factors)
7. Resource Allocation Analysis (Priority allocation of resources)
The evaluation items included Quality (Q), Cost (C), D (D1 – Demand Control, D2 – Delivery Time), Safety (S) and Environment (E).
The following demonstrated how policy (e.g. reduction of energy cost) to implement in each session.

Finally, Prof. Osada introduced his TQM model to us and he hoped that we could make innovation through SMBP in TQM to achieve sustainable growth. Lastly, he concluded Quality Innovation was Value Creation and Capture.

Q&A Session:

At end of the seminar, Mr. Peter Fung (Chairman, HKSQ) presented a souvenir to Prof. Osada

We had dinner with guests together in CityU. We also gave him our 25th Anniversary Book and Newsletter headline in 2014. We told Prof. Osada that HKSQ is going to the 30th Anniversary in 2016.

Then we took a group photos.
(Left: Dr. Ken Yau, Dr. KS Chin, Mr. Karson Chui, Mr. Peter Fung, Prof. Osada, Ms. Minda Chiang and I)

(Left: Mr. Karson Chui, Dr. Ken Yau, Mr. Peter Fung, Prof. Osada, Dr. KS Chin, I, Ms. Minda Chiang and Dr. Catherine Chan (President, HKQFDA))

Reference:
HKSQ - www.hksq.org
JIS Q9023:2003 Performance improvement of management system - Guidelines for management by policy
JSQC-Std 32-001 (E):2014 Guidelines for Daily Management
Hiroshi Osada (1998) “Strategic management by policy in total quality management” Srategic Change, Vol. 7, pp277-287.

HKSQ Strategy Meeting 2015

Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) annual strategy meeting was held on 22nd Aug 2015. The meeting aims to plan different activities included seminar, technical visit, study mission and other related activities. In near future, we planned to celebrate HKSQ 30th Anniversary and we planned series events in coming year.

Our chairman Mr. Peter Fung prepared agenda to review our last year plan and followed different quality approach to analysis our value proposition and strategic planning.

During the discussion, we would prepare 30th Anniversary book and Quality Gurus seminar series including Deming (Dr. Aaron Tong), Crosby (Mr. Peter Fung and Mr. Simon Tong), Juran, Feigenbaum, Ishikawa, Taguchi, Akao (Dr. Catherine Chan), Kano, etc.

Then we confirmed focus services and activities, as well as, the 30th Anniversary Logo.

We took a group photos for memory.

The meeting was held from 9:30am to 1:45pm. After lunch, we attended the seminar on Strategic Management by Policy (SMBP) – Integration of Strategic Planning and Policy Management.

Reference:
HKSQ - www.hksq.org

HKSQ Seminar on Big Data & Rapid Systematic Innovation Framework

The seminar on “Riding the Wave of Big Data: Towards a Rapid Systematic Innovation Framework” was organized by Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) and co-organized with ISE Dept., PolyU & ASQ-HK on 21st Aug 2015. Big data is now woven into the fabric of the global economy, the effective use of big data has the potential to transform economies and deliver a new wave of growth and innovation. The seminar aimed to introduce ACE framework (where A – Accelerated Process; C – Connection and E – Ecosystem) which assisted firms in product innovation by shortening the time to market, improving customers’ product adoption and reducing cost. Before the seminar, we took a photo with guests.
(Left: Dr. Albert Tsang (HKSQ), Dr. Leanne Chung (Cardiff University), Dr. Kim Hua Tan (Nottingham University), I and Dr. Michael Li (ISIHK))

In the beginning, Dr. Albert Tsang (Former Chairman, HKSQ) introduced HKSQ background and activities as well as relationship with ASQ.

Then I introduced Dr. Kim Hua Tan to our members. He is Division Head of Operations Management and Information Systems, Nottingham University Business School, Reader in Lean Operations and Supply Management. His research interests included Operations Strategy, Sustainable Manufacturing, Performance Measurement, Lean Management, Big Data (competence sets) and Supply Chain Innovation Capabilities.

Firstly, Dr. Kim Hua Tan briefed his topics including “Why Rapid Innovation?”, “Conventional Innovation Processes”, “A Framework for Rapid Systematic Innovation” and “Further Work”. He discussed the industry crisis in China and claimed “Innovation” was the key to SMEs Competitiveness. Many challenges involved in product innovation such as “Creativity or new idea”, “Long and complex process”, “Time to market / volume” and “Huge resource and time consuming”.

Then Dr. Tan briefed different approach of Product Innovation (PI) in Japanese, Korean and China which showed in the following diagrams.

Dr. Tan used an example to turn Chinese Kung Fu to Iron Man that explained how to harvest big data to achieve rapid innovation. He reviewed conventional process from literature about systematic innovation included TRIZ, Mann’s (2004) Framework, Sheu and Lee’s (2011) Framework, Phased Program Planning (PPP) (Takeuchi and Nonaka, 1986) which endorsed by NASA and Phased Review Process (Cooper, 1994). Dr. Tan said that today’s market was fast-paced and competitive, it was necessary to speed up new product development. 

 

Then he quoted McKinsey (2011 & 2013) “Big Data is the next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity”. With big data, company could gain a better understanding of their products, customers, and markets, and this was crucial to innovation. He mentioned big data enhance product innovation to a higher level through “Drive incremental revenue”, “Improve operational effectiveness” and “Reduce data warehouse cost”.

Rapid Innovation Framework named ACE which was based on the principles of Accelerated Process (A), Customer Connection (C), and Ecosystem (E).
In order to achieve the Accelerated Process (A), the key elements were:
- Autonomy Management
- Cross-functional teams work in parallel
- Divides project into small elements
- Big data supported communication and development

In order to achieve the Customer Connection (C), the important elements were:
- Using big data to understand customers and market
- Keeps close to customers
- Updates the latest product information quickly
- Interact with customers and gathers useful feedback

In order to achieve the Ecosystem (E), the significant elements were:
- Builds strong networks with partners and customers
- Launches the new product quickly
- Gathers feedback quickly from customers and partners

After that Dr. Tan shared some cases included “Precision Angle and Levelling Instrument” and
“Electronic Luggage Combination Lock”, etc.

Lastly, Dr. Tan concluded accelerated innovation gave particular emphasis to efficiency and cost saving comparted with traditional innovation approaches. In addition, he pointed out some further works as follows:
- Product Innovation – end of life products
- Rapid product ramp-up capabilities
- Amazon & Ebay for fast worldwide market penetration
- Social Media – inputs for rapid product upgrades
- Wider applications in other industries
- IP Protection

Q&A Session:

At end of the seminar, Mr. Peter Fung (Chairman, HKSQ) presented a souvenir to Dr. Tan.

We had dinner with guests together in PolyU.
(Left: Mr. Karson Chui, Mr. Peter Fung, Dr. KS Chin, I, Ms. Minda Chiang, Dr. Leanne Chung, Dr. Kim Hua Tan, Mr. Simon Tong and Dr. Albert Tsang)

Reference:
HKSQ - www.hksq.org

ESG Seminar – Crisis Management on Social Media

The Executive Study Group (ESG) seminar Topic in August named “Crisis Management on Social Media – How to Handle Online Complaints Properly to Protect Brands” was held by the ESG, Asia Pacific Institute for Strategy Limited (APIFS) and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corp (HKSTPC) on 21 Aug 2015 in Grand Hall at Phase III. I would like to summarize the seminar for sharing below.

In the beginning, Dr. Mark Lee briefed the purpose of Executive Study Group (ESG) and he quoted Prof. Peter Drucker (Father of Management) that “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two and only two basic functions: Marketing and Innovation.” And then he also quoted Jack Trout (Author of Best Seller – The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing) that “Today, when top management is surveyed, their priorities in order are: Finance, Sales, Production, Management, Legal and People. Marketing and Innovation are missing from the list.” Then Dr. Mark Lee briefed the content of seminar included "The Revenge via Social Media”, “Double-Deviation Avoidance”, “Divide-and-Conquer Strategy for Complaints”, “Crisis Monitoring and Related Tools”, “How to Manage the Five Social Media Complaints” and “A New Form of Teamwork”, as well as, “Group Discussion”. 

The Revenge via Social Media:
The first case was a video in YouTube named “FedEx Guy Throwing My Computer Monitor”. Because of FedEx misbehavior of delivery, the owner posted this surveillance video into the YouTube. Even though FedEx created an adequate response within 3 Days via the company blog, it was too late that the video had already been viewed over half a million times in 2011. Until now (2015), there were still viral with over 9 million views (actual number is 9,545,461 on 21 Aug 2015).
Dr. Lee said that high cost of complaints in the Past but it was easier and more effective on Social Media. Customer had bargaining power through Publicity!

Double-Deviation Avoidance:
Double-Deviation occurs when customer complaints followed an initiation and propagation couplet. That is, a problem only becomes a problem when customers are not adequately compensated (fail recovery) for the initial mistake (fail), or when a second mistake occurs.

Divide-and-Conquer Strategy for Complaints:
There are five types of social media complaint and could be classified as follows:
1. Directness: Directly contacting the company online
2. Boasting: Positive publicity about extraordinary service recovery
3. Badmouthing: Negative word-of-mouth “without” contacting the firm
4. Tattling: Complaining to a third party for help
5. Spite: Spreading negative publicity to get revenge

For 1st type “Directness” (Positive / Good Type)
The first case quoted still FedEx. They established FedEx Customer Care Facebook page and used FedEx’s Redirection Strategy. In their Facebook page added “Contact Us – Email Customer Service (preferred): FacebookCS@fedex.com”.

The second case quoted Children’s Place. Their girl T-shirt design assumed girl bad in Math. Then they received complaint through Social Media. Children’s Place tweeted its apologyies at the same day and using the following steps to solve it.
Step 1 – Private Addressing: They had sending a new, different t-shirt, along with a box full of goodies.
Step 2 – Public Announcement: They addressed the public concern by announcing that the controversial t-shirt had been pulled from its stores.

Managing the 1st type of complaint strategy:
We need to recovery for an initial service failure which is Time Sensitive. For instance, the first answer minimally acknowledges the situation and difficulties encountered by the customer within 15 minutes. (One hour is reason) Then it will not trigger Double Deviation. Remember to respond publicly for simple case but respond privately for complex case and then remember to announce it is resolved!

For 2nd type “Boasting” (Positive / Good Type)
The case for second type of social media complaint was Morrison’s Supermarket. The customer complaint was waiting too long to get bread sliced within 18 hours. Morrison’s Supermarket not only contacted the customer to apologize but also rearranged the bread racking so that employees could better view waiting customers. In Morrison tweeter communication, they contacted customer used the statement “Could you please DM us your telephone number so we can get in touch?”

Managing the 2nd type of complaint strategy:
The case shared was Ritz-Carlton. A little boy left behind Joshie (stuffed giraffe) in the hotel. His father told him that Joshie decided to stay a few more days at the resort making friends and enjoying the sun. Then the father shared this white lie with the Ritz-Carlton staff and then they took a series of photos with Joshie to realize the father’s story. This father was a successful CEO (Chris Hurn) and influential blogger for the Huffington Post. After Chris’ blog post ran, this story became extremely popular on social media and in the business press.

For 3rd type “Badmouthing” (Negative / Bad Type)
Many social media shared mainly in photos. A picture is worth a thousand words such as picture of suitcase’s broken handle by Delta Airline on Instagram. Another case was British Airways. The customer used the paid “Promoted Tweet” to connect with the right audience to complain about his lost luggage. His tweet simply stated “Don’t fly@BritishAirways” and “Retweeting your British Airways complaints to show what a terrible airline they are, offering bad customer service, no communication and often losing your bags!” The post garnered over 25,000 impressions on Twitter in 6 hours!

Managing the 3rd type of complaint strategy:
This type of customer is no interest in compensation and the company is no chance to fix the problem. However, the company could communicate its proactive competency and sense of caring. The following steps should be performed:
- Should publicly contact the individual to acknowledge the situation
- Invite him/her to engage in a private discussion
- Politely communicate and Acknowledgment Post
- Post the results to the Public (for public opinion)

For 4th type “Tattling” (Negative / Bad Type)
Another case employed “Complaint Resolution Platform” such as PeopleClaim. However, this type of complaint was still motivated by reparation rather than revenge said by Dr. Lee. He added “Publicity” is the treat to your counterpart in this game.”

Managing the 4th type of complaint strategy:
If the third-party involvement happened, customers should strong cases because of filtered by the third-party. However, the third-party should be neutrality. Even an imperfect deal is better than facing a serious case of online revenge.

For 5th type “Spite” (Negative / Ugly Type)
The worst case quoted United Airline. The singer’s guitar was broken by United Airline staff during transportation. This singer created a song named “United Breaks Guitars” and posted this video to YouTube on 6 July 2009. There are 150,000 views within one day. The video then garnered over half million hits by 9 July 2009. Unit Aug 2015, there has over 15 million hits. In Dec 2009, Time magazine named “United Breaks Guitars” No. 7 on its list of the Top 10 Viral Videos of 2009.

Managing the 5th type of complaint strategy:
Damage control is KEY. It is difficult to control after viral. So company need to ensure no Double Deviation and focus on “Damage Control”. So quickly identify the threat through its monitoring systems and publicly acknowledge the situation on time.
In this “United Breaks Guitars” case, Mr. Robert Bradford (Managing Director, Customer Contact Centers, United Airlines) used this video for internal training and to change its customer service policy accordingly. Even though the customer didn’t accept the offered compensation US$3000, they donated to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz as a “gesture of goodwill”. (See Singer's revenge on United: A hit song)

Crisis Monitoring and Related Tools:
Dr. Lee said there are overall strategies to handle all types of complaints. Firstly, we need matching type of social media complaint with right manner and the effective monitoring was fundamental. He introduced three tools included “Google Alerts”, “TweetDeck” and “Social Mention”. He added the company needed sufficient investment of time and resources such as JetBlue employed 11 full-time staff to online monitoring on Twitter.

Lastly, Dr. Lee suggested that Customer Service and Public Relations departments worked together to address online complaints using the above management approach.

Before the Group Discussion, Dr. Lee gave us an exercise to find out two most difficult strategiesto be managed online complaints and selected the easiest one to be managed.

Reference:
HKSTP - www.hkstp.org
Asia Pacific Institute for Strategy Limited (亞太策略研究所有限公司) – www.apifs.org
FedEx Guy Throwing My Computer Monitor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKUDTPbDhnA
United Breaks Guitars - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
Singer's revenge on United: A hit song - http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/07/09/Singers-revenge-on-United-A-hit-song/UPI-79301247160917/