The 6th National Quality Conference 2017 in Dammam, Saudi Arabia – Day 1

The 6^th National Quality Conference (NQC) organized by Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization (SASO) from 28^th to 30^th Nov 2017. It aims to meet the updates and enhances the quality culture through spreading the latest knowledge in this field.  The slogan of the Conference is “Quality ... the path toward excellence and leadership” combines the main goal of the Conference together with the latest updates in the current situation.   Before the conference, Minda and I took a photo in the hall.

Day 1 (29^th Nov 2017)

The first keynote speaker was Dr. Khaled Al Sabti (President of Education Evaluation Commission) and his topic entitled “Quality and Business Excellence path to Saudi Vision 2030”.  He said “An innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations.” 

In his talk, there were four key points as follows:

i.             Outlined Vision 2030 and showed how support of innovation is a key factor of the objectives and initiatives of Vision 2030.

ii.           Introduced innovation, presents its major types, show its correlation with the competitiveness of nations, and trace its role in the four industrial revolutions.

iii.          Focused on the role of governments and the private sector in spurring innovation, and present models of different arrangements that countries have pursued in this respect.

iv.         Shed light on the national innovation system in the Kingdom by outlining its key components.

First Session – Quality and Business Excellence Path to Saudi Vision 2030

(Chaired by Dr. Saad bin Othman Al-Qasabi)

The first speaker was Dr. Robin Mann (CEO of the Centre for Organizational Excellence Research, New Zealand) and his presentation entitled “The Role of Business Excellence and Benchmarking in Nation Building (to meet Saudi’s Vision 2030)”.  He said “Organization / business excellence is “excellence” in stakeholder-related performance results; plus excellence in leadership, processes, people and customer focus.”

Then he briefed the business excellence was assessed by proved frameworks such as Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) and the EFQM Excellence Model.  Dr. Mann said benchmarking help you to improve through learning and applying better practices.  “Benchmarking is learning from the experience of others.”

After that Dr. Robin Mann stated the challenge to deliver Saudi’s 2030 vision and quoted Charles Darwin (1809) that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.  It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”  He compared with Singapore and UAE government excellence system.

It is time to learn from best practices for 2030 vision.  King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud said “My first objective is for our country to be a pioneering and a successful global model of excellence, on all fronts, and I will work with you to achieve that”.    For example, the objectives of the ranking for global competitiveness set from 30 to the top 10; GDP through export in non-oil set from 16% to 50% in 2030.  

Finally, Dr. Robin Mann introduced the national strategy of excellence a roadmap from “Awareness of Business Excellence” to “Applying Business Excellence” and then achieved the “World-class”.   The next steps to commit the vision 2030 were:

1.       Assess your organization’s strengths and weaknesses based on business excellence criteria

2.       Allocate responsibility to leaders

3.       Embed a benchmarking and learning culture

The second speaker was Eng. Husamadin Al-Madani (Acting Director General, the National Center of Performance Measurement) and his presentation named “The Impact of Measuring Performance and Applying the System of Key Indicators in Enhancing the Quality of Government Performance”.  The national center for performance measurement in public sector and its reports which aimed to implement the comprehensive quality to achieve the Saudi vision 2030.

The third speaker was Eng Saud AI Askar (Deputy of Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Governor) and his presentation topic was “National Quality Infrastructure towards a Prosperous Economy”.  He introduced the national infrastructure of quality and its contents.  Then he discussed the efforts and achievements of SASO which supported developing the national quality infrastructure.  Finally, he highlighted the most important future plans of national quality.

Q&A in the first session

During Singapore experience in second session, other speakers (included me) were arranged to meet the Prince Saud bin Nayef Al Saud in his office.  Mr. Tamis A. Alhammadi (General Director of SASO, Eastern Region) led us to go to the prince office.  I took a photo with Tamis for memory.

The office is big and highly security.  No camera and mobile could bring inside.  We met the Prince Saud bin Nayef Al Saud and he shared his vision and expectation on the conference and learnt from international quality professionals for achieving the Saudi vision 2030.

Second Session – The Singapore Experience in Quality and Business Excellence

(Chaired by Dr. Jamil bin Jar-Allah al-Baqawi)

Minda stayed here and took some photos for Singapore friends.

Mr. GE Tan (Chairman, SQI) was the first speaker in this session and his presentation topic named “The Singapore Business Excellence Journey”.  In the beginning, he briefed the business excellence milestones in Singapore since 1994.  The first Singapore Quality Award (SQA) was launched at that time.

Mr. Tan shared that in 1994, SPRING Singapore introduced the Business Excellence (BE) initiative to help businesses strengthen their management practices and achieve sustainable improvements in productivity and performance. Key to this initiative is the BE framework, which is aligned with excellence frameworks adopted by the United States Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, European Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Award, Japan Quality Award and the Australian Business Excellence Awards.  After that he shared some SQA winner’s stories.  

Mr. Kitson Leonard Lee (Vice Chairman, SQI) was the second speaker and he presented the topic was “Building a Culture of Excellence: The Singapore Experience”.    He said “To survive and prosper in this century, it is imperative for us to understand why values are important and why values-driven organizations are successful. Thus, creating or building that culture of excellence determines its success.”

Then Kitson compared two companies’ culture and explained what makes a culture.  The culture of an organization is the reflection of the values, beliefs, and behaviors of the current leaders and the institutional legacy of the values of past leaders that are embedded in the structures, policies, systems, procedures and incentives of the group.   Finally, Kitson quoted Mr. Lee Kuan Yew (Founding Prime Minister, Singapore) statement as conclusion that “A leader without the vision, to strive to improve things, is no good.  Then you will just stay put, you won’t progress.”

Mr. Kee Ann Chan (Vice-Chairman – Education, SQI) was the third speaker and his presentation entitled “Lean Transformation for Singapore Process Excellence”.  In the beginning, Mr. Chan briefed lean transformed organizations could create more value for the customer with fewer resources.  A value creation process had minimum waste.  

Then Mr. Chan introduced the 3 Tier Lean Management System to facilitate a daily problem-solving environment.  Tier 1 is Work Cell Level; Tier 2 is Department Level; and Tier 3 is Company Level.  After that he introduced the power of A3 Approach.   Finally, Mr. Chan explained the Enterprise Lean Management System and formed the Lean Culture in the organization.  

Dr. Narinder Kaur (National Library Board (NLB), Singapore) was the last speaker in this session and her topic named “Singapore National Library Board – Quality & Excellence Journey”.   Firstly, she introduced their vision, mission and shared values.  Then she briefed their Business Excellence Journey that achieved Singapore Quality Award twice in 2004 and 2011, respectively.  

They had challenged Innovation Excellence Award in 2016 successfully.  Then Dr. Kaur explained their Innovation Framework.  In this framework, they managed innovation and minimized risk through the following flow.

Concept -> Proof of Concept (PoC) -> Prototype -> Pilot -> Roll-out -> Operation -> Retirement

Q&A in the second session

Before the third session, Mr. Mohammed Al-Qahtani  had Quality Dialogue.

Third Session – Future Trends of Quality

(Chaired by Prof. Mohamed Zairi)

In the beginning of third session, a short video about Quality 4.0 was showed.

The first speaker in the third session was Mr. Mike Turner (Managing Partner- Oakland Institute, UK) and his topic named “Redefining Quality – accelerating change, reducing cost and protecting reputation”.   Firstly, Mr. Turner pointed out 6 key challenges in delivering quality in the 21^st Century world of business and they were:

1.       The Consumer Challenge

2.       The Reputation Challenge

3.       The Confidence Challenge

4.       The Supply Chain Challenge

5.       The Transformation Challenge

6.       The Improvement Challenge

He then proposed the meaning of “Redefined Quality” into 3 areas and they were “Accelerate Change”, “Reduce Cost” and “Protect Reputation”.  For accelerate change, he suggested to use Oakland’s Agile Figure of 8 model for effective change.  For reduce cost, using “Lean” removed the non-value adding waste from a process, pathway or service.  For protect reputation, it started with understanding performance and risk. 

After that he mentioned the new quality professionals must be:

1.       Agents for Change (Transforming processes, behavior and culture)

2.       Guardians (Protecting the organization)

3.       Leaders (Governance organization system’s efficiency and effectiveness)

4.       Professional (Code of conduct / CQI)

5.       Progressive (Understanding dynamic environments)

6.       Collaboration (Develop the culture of excellence & improvement)

7.       Holistic (To advocate a broad process & customer & stakeholder-centric view of the organization)

Finally, he introduced CQI professional model to us.

The second speaker was Eng. Mohammed Habeeb (A speaker from Sheikh Khalifa Government Excellence Program, The United Arab Emirates) and his presentation was “Governmental Excellence System- Efficiency of Government Work in Sustainability of Institutional Results and Outputs”.  He introduced to achieve UAE vision by applying the mission statement aiming to reach excellent results of the performance and human resources of the UAE public sector through the application of an international excellence model and various and on-going development initiatives enhancing the culture of innovation, loyalty and excellence among all public employees.

The UAE Government Excellent Model invited the top quality organizations in the world including ASQ, EOQ, IAQ, ANQ, APQO, EFQM, etc. 

Then Mr. Habeeb played a video which recorded those quality professionals’ message about the Government Excellent Program.

The last speaker was Dr. Mohammed Nasseef (Assistant professor of quality and institutional excellence - business department, King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah) and his topic named “Digital Customer and Technology Transformation in the Saudi Vision 2030”.  Firstly he briefed the digital world and then he quoted Steve Jobs statement to show the important of customer experience.  The statement is “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around.”

Then Dr. Mohammed Nasseef suggested to focus “Digital Customer Experience & Expectations Management” because 1 second delay in e-commerce transaction decreased customer satisfaction by 16%.  Five dimensions were important and they were Convenience, Consistency, Relevance, Empowerment and Agility.  At the end, he concluded that the company adapted digital transformation would be growth but it had risk if business as usual.  

Q&A in the third session

After that Dr. Saad bin Othman Al-Kasabi (Governor of Saudi Standard, Metrology and Quality Organization (SASO)) presented souvenir to guests and supporting organizations.  The person in the photo is Dr. Eng. Mohamed Abdelmoteleb Etman (Chairman of National Quality Institute, Arab Republic of Egypt, Ministry of Trade & Industry)

We had dinner together and I took a photo with Dr. Etman for memory.

Reference:

The 6^th National Quality Conference (NQC) in Damman, Saudi Arabia - http://nqc.gov.sa/en/AboutUsPage.aspx

20171103: Apply Visa to visit Saudi Arabia for Saudi National Quality Conference - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2017/11/apply-visa-to-visit-saudi-arabia-for.html

20171127: Pre-National Quality Conference 2017 Visit in Dammam, Saudi Arabia - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2017/11/pre-national-quality-conference-2017.html

20171128: The 6th National Quality Conference 2017 in Dammam, Saudi Arabia – Workshop - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2017/11/the-6th-national-quality-conference.html

20171128: The 6th National Quality Conference 2017 in Dammam, Saudi Arabia – Opening Ceremony - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2017/11/the-6th-national-quality-conference_28.html

20171129: The 6th National Quality Conference 2017 in Dammam, Saudi Arabia – Day 1 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2017/11/the-6th-national-quality-conference_29.html

20171130: The 6th National Quality Conference 2017 in Dammam, Saudi Arabia – Day 2 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2017/11/the-6th-national-quality-conference_30.html

20171130: Post-National Quality Conference 2017 Dinner & Visit in Dammam, Saudi Arabia - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2017/11/post-national-quality-conference-2017.html