HKSQ Quality Philosophies Series – Deming Workshop

Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) is celebrating its 30^th Anniversary in 2016.  One of the activities to commemorate this occasion is the first seminar of our Quality Philosophies Series featuring Deming, Juran and Crosby which held on 9 April 2016.  Then we arranged a Deming Workshop on 3 July 2016 and the trainer was Dr. Aaron Tong (Former Chairman, HKSQ) who was the first people I knew in Hong Kong attended Dr. Deming famous 4 Days Training Course named “Methods for Management of Productivity and Quality” in USA in 1987.  Since Deming’s theory established 30 years ago, Aaron would review that theory with us in modern management perspective.

Before the seminar, I (Former Chairman, HKSQ) introduced our flagship event named “The 1^st World Summit for Chinese Quality” and the post-summit innovation seminar entitled “Introduction and Application of Extenics” on 8 & 9 July 2016, respectively.  Extenics was Chinese original innovation methodology developed by Prof. Cai Wen for 30 years. 

1) The 1st World Summit for Chinese Quality (WSCQ) (第一屆全球華人品質峰會) http://www.cityu.edu.hk/seem/wscq2016/

2) The post WSCQ innovation seminar "Introduction and Application of Extenics" (可拓學創新方法的介紹及應用) http://www.hksq.org/Seminar-on_Extenics_9-July-2016_v3.pdf

Dr. Aaron Tong (Managing Director, TQM Consultants Limited & Former Chairman, HKSQ) was the workshop trainer and he shared Deming’s Philosophies and his experience.  He told us that he served company after he come back from USA in 1989 and then it had achieved Hong Kong Industry Awards both Quality and Productivity.  He employed what he learnt from Deming and improved his served company getting the following results:

i)                    First test from 100% inspection to 10% sampling inspection

ii)                  Burn-in test from 24hr reduced to 4hr

iii)                Final test from 80s reduced to 25s

The productivity had much enhanced and quality also improved that field failure reduced 50%!  Moreover, the first test passing rate increased from 94% to 99%.

Then Aaron briefed the history of west management since Tayor and then process production line was optimized by Henry Ford.  However, Japan was ahead USA in manufacturing in 80s.  Mr. Konosuke Matsushia issued an article in US newspaper in 1979 and said that “We are going to win and the industrial west is going to lose out… Your firms are built on the Taylor model; even worse, so are your heads.”  Then USA started to study why Japan industry success.  

Then they found an American named Dr. Edwards Deming who was famous in Japan.  Deming’s contribution in Japan was recognized and USA accepted his philosophies (In Chinese: 出口轉內銷).  At the time, Dr. Deming was around 80 years old.  

After that Dr. Tong explained Deming’s 14 Points one by one and shared his ideas.

(W. Edwards Deming’s 14 Points for Total Quality Management - http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/total-quality-management/overview/deming-points.html )

1)      Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.

Aaron explained that today’s environment was changed (e.g. Short product life cycle, Internet + and new generation).  Do the constancy of purpose still valid?

2)      Adopt the new philosophy.

In the past, the West thinking was that increasing Quality would decrease the Productivity.  However, Dr. Deming proposed “Do it right the first time” without rework that could increase both Quality and Productivity. 

3)      Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.

Aaron quoted the case about US army parachute which compliance rate was 99.9% during WWII.  The general was very angry because of half solider die from parachute!  Therefore, the general asked the person-in-charge in the factory to test the parachute and irregular to sample parachute for that person-in-charge to test it.  After that no solider died because of parachute quality.  Aaron told us to solve problem not necessary related to cost but policy.  It could be seems as “Accountability”!  He also discussed the Craftsman's spirit (匠人精神) that Japanese and Germans were representatives and outstanding.

4)      End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimize total cost by working with a single supplier.

Aaron challenged the tendering system that do it really Open, Fair and Justify (公開, 公平, 公正)?  He also explained the different between Single Source and Sole Source.  Single source is selectable but the sole source you haven’t choice.

5)      Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and service.

Aaron said one of breakthrough in ISO 9001:2015 was in the clause 10 Improvement.  The note stated “Example of improvement can include correction, corrective action, continual improvement, breakthrough change, innovation and re-organization.”

Then we discussed the PDCA vs DMAIC.  Aaron said Japanese believed PDCA and they met the problem and must do after plan without considered cost.  But American considered DMAIC on ROI first.  After Analysis phase, we could stop the project if it was not valuable to do it.

6)      Institute training on the job.

Aaron quoted Motorola case that their policy was 50hr training per staff per year.  But it was trouble of team head to assign some training to ordinary staff!  It is because lack of focus!  Now, we focused on competence-based training.  One of participants (Charles) shared that training is only 10%. Supervision involved 20% of staff development.  But the most important is self-study involved 70%.  Therefore, many professional organizations employed Continuous Professional Development (CPD).  In addition, Aaron said teacher taught student in the past but student could know more new things than teacher in this internet era.

7)      Adopt and institute leadership.

In the past, no leadership stated in ISO 9001 QMS standard because leadership decision was subjective in the view of auditor.  Recently, ISO 9001:2015 was added the leadership in which was more like Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA).  Aaron briefed his idea about leadership in three elements and they were Power, Authority and Influence.  Power could come from Money, Force and Knowledge.  Authority is from organization and Influence is from team/group of people.

Aaron briefed the different between Leadership and Management.  Since I am CMQOE, I would like to use the following table to explain it.  The information is come from CQM Primer in 2000.

9)      Drive out fear.

Aaron discussed the Henry Ford’s statement that “Workers only bring his hands to factory but not his brain.”  Why?  It was because Ford’s mass production only for one type of product “T-model” and only one color at that time.  It is less variance and very stable.  Unit 1979, the world was changed and Japan ahead USA manufacturing and they created QCC that also employed the worker’s brain!  Aaron believed Honest, Forgiving and Knowledgeable.  But he said forgiving needed to be calibrated.  Because of Chinese Culture, you don’t blame the staff/people that was forgiving.  His understanding was that to told people the fact and then to help him doing his job right.

10)      Break down barriers between staff areas.

He told us the ultimate breakdown of barrier between departments was found in GE Medical that they only remained the profit departments (e.g. Sale and Marketing) and others were outsourcing!  Another example was breakdown of barrier among companies such as CLP who worked with his suppliers and customers.

11)      Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.

Aaron said it was Deming’s believe but his was different.  He introduced his company’s slogans and it was what he would like to achieve but had not achieved yet.  He also told us not only slogans but also change the culture through penetration.

12)      Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management.

Why Deming promoted to eliminate numerical quotas?  At his time, management by objective (MBO) was very popular but Deming’s thinking was different.  Because he knew the humanity and he tried to TRUST people to do his best rather than control them.

12)      Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the annual rating or merit system.

Japan was the outstanding to pride of workmanship.  During discussion, Aaron pointed out that some Japan companies may be too much depended on their Craftsman's spirit (匠人精神) but they was not able to catch the change of market.  Another thing was appraisal that Deming would like to eliminate it.  Aaron said it was because supervisor should know their subordinate performance and the appraisal worked daily.  Once problem happened, supervisor should discussed with subordinate as soon as possible to correct it.  

13)      Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for everyone.

Aaron discussed with us that internal staff growth or acquire of external expert.  He observed the trend was acquired from outside because real experts / talents didn’t work with big companies but to be startup.  So many new technologies were come from M&A such as Google’s Android, Blogger, AlphaGo, etc.

14)      Put everybody in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.

USA had transformation successfully based on Deming’s philosophy and focused on self-management.

Group photo of speakers and participants were taken for memory.

(Left: Sammy Chan, Gloria Leung, Ronald Chwa, Aaron Tong, Minda Chiang, I, Warren Chim, Janson Kong, Charles Ho, Streamlet Siu and Raymond Szeto)

Reference:

HKSQ - www.hksq.org

20160409: HKSQ Quality Philosophies Series – Deming, Juran and Crosby - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2016/04/hksq-quality-philosophies-series-deming.html

20110211: Quality Guru changed the world - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2011/02/quality-guru-changed-world.html

20080310: Three Quality Gurus have long life - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2008/03/three-quality-gurus-have-long-life.html

20071106: The History of Quality Management - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2007/11/history-of-quality-management.html

Deming related events:

20141105: HKSQ Dinner with Ms. Jane Seddon (PMI) - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2014/11/hksq-dinner-with-ms-jane-seddon-pmi.html

20140615: HKSQ Dinner with John Hunter (Deming Institute) - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2014/06/hksq-dinner-with-john-hunter.html

20131127: Quality Management makes people and organization SMARTER (Prof. Yoshinori Iizuka - Deming prize winner in 2006) - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/11/quality-management-makes-people-and.html

20091210: Dinner with Prof. Hiroshi OSADA (Deming Prize Winner 2009) - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2009/12/dinner-with-prof-hiroshi-osada-deming.html