Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): The WMD, the WAD and the WSD Forum 2018

The Hong Kong Council for Testing and Certification (HKCTC), the Standards and Calibration Laboratory of the Innovation and Technology Commission (SCL), Government Laboratory (GL), Hong Kong Accreditation Service (HKAS) and Product Standards Information Bureau (PSIB) jointly organized the World Metrology Day (WMD), the World Accreditation Day (WAD) and the World Standards Day (WSD) Forum on 11 July 2018. Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) was one of supporting organizations. This forum aimed to celebrate the WMD, WAD and WSD and introduce to participants various aspects and benefit of the quality infrastructure. Before the start, I met Ms. Brenda Lam (SCL) who is my old colleague in EPA Centre, CityU and we took a photo for memory.

I also met Mr Nick Leung (HKAS) that we cooperated in Science Park for Dupont project ten years ago.

In the beginning, Mr. Ivan LEE Kwok-bun, JP (Deputy Commissioner for Innovation and Technology, ITC, HKSAR Government) gave welcoming remarks. SCL and GL played important roles on metrology and new SI unit definition.

Group photo

Then Dr. Della SIN Wai-mei, JP (Government Chemist, Government Laboratory, HKSAR Government) gave an opening remarks. She said Metrology, Accreditation and Standards enhanced for Innovation and Technology (I&T) development in Hong Kong.

Prof. Joachim ULLRICH (President, Consultative Committee for Units, BIPM) was the first speaker and his topic entitled “The Revised International System of Units: Creating the Future”. He said to fundamentally improve the SI for the benefit of industry and global trade, society, science and research.

Firstly, he briefed the base quantities of length (m), mass (kg), time (s), electric current (A), temperature (K), luminous intensity (cd) and amount of substance (mol). Four of the seven base units namely kilogram, ampere, kelvin and mole were reviewed by fixing the values of the Planck constant (h), the elementary charge (e), the Boltzmann constant (k) and the Avogadro constant (N_A).

Then he explained the revised SI units that ensured continuity, harmonization and stability. Since it guaranteed long-time stability, realization everywhere with ever-increasing accuracy as technology proceeds, thus triggering innovation in science, industry and technology. There are two generation quantum technologies and stated below.

1^st Generation Quantum Technology that understand and exploit quantum nature accounts for ~60% of world economic power.

2^nd Generation Quantum Technology that engineer single quanta and quantum systems created the future on quantum electronics, sensors quantum cryptography, computers, metrology … etc.

Mr. Jon MURTHY (Chairperson, ILAC Marketing and Communications Committee and IAF Communications and Marketing Committee) was the second speaker and his topic named “Can We Quantify the Value that the Global Quality Infrastructure Has on Our Health and Safety?” In the beginning, he said economic impact of poor occupational safety and health practices was estimated to be 3.94% of Global GDP (~US$2.8 Trillion) in direct and indirect costs of injuries and diseases each year.

One of example showed in the diagram before and after implementation of ISO 45001, indicating that standards value on health and safety. Then he described the quality infrastructure benefit on productivity, growth and innovation based on Business Drivers and Regulatory Drivers (Public Sector Efficiency).

The values of a Quality Infrastructure were mentioned. Standards could support risk management and adding business value he said. But we hadn’t quantified the value yet. We started to build up the evidence based both in microscopic and macroscopic view.

During tea break, I took some photos with my quality friends.

Mr. K. Gabuji (HKAS Technical Assessor) who is the first technical assessor to audit CMATCL I met since 1997.

Mr. Cheng Yeuk-nin, Brian (Chief Research & Survey Officer, Consumer Council) and I (we knew each other through CMATCL).

I also met Ms. Kathy Fu (Laboratory Manager, HKPMAC) and I visited her laboratory in 2015 and I was also Hong Kong Precious Metals Assay Centre Steering Committee member.

The third speaker was Mr. Adrian GOH (Director, ISO Regional Engagement Initiative - Asia) and his presentation title was “Standards and the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Mr. Goh briefed ISO regional engagement initiative in Asia included “Advocacy”, “Training and Technical Assistance” and “Communication, Collaboration and Partnership”.

Then he discussed the Fourth Industrial Revolution in which was blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological worlds. International standards ensured interoperability and provided certainty in an uncertain environment. Standards could provide the common communication method for smart manufacturing. For intelligent transport systems, interoperability was the key to connected cars. ISO 13482 was the first international standard for personal care robots and ISO/IEC 27001 series was the cyber-risk toolbox. Finally, he mentioned smart cities and infrastructure that ISO 37120 - Sustainable development of communities -- Indicators for city services and quality of life was introduced. Moreover, he told me ISO TC268 - Sustainable cities and communities was including smart city initiatives.

The fourth speaker was Mr. Bryan CHEUNG Kin-lung (Senior Manager – System & Safety Intelligence, MTR Corporation Limited) and his presentation topic entitled “Big Data in Railway Asset Management”. He introduced MTR business overview in the beginning.

Then he stated MTR Asset Management from BSI PAS 55-1 to ISO 55001 from 2005 to 2015. In order to do data driven decision for optimization, they employed Big Data in Asset Management.

After that he briefed the different among Descriptive, Diagnostic, Predictive and Prescriptive decision making using Big Data. Therefore, MTR employed predictive and prescriptive maintenance to predict equipment failure and prevent the failure.

Mr. Bryan Cheung also briefed the algoritms they used for Prescriptive Maintenance (Predict and Act) that system must be cognitive using different Artificial Neural Network.

Finally, he showed their data analytics and data studio evolution from corrective / reactive maintenance to Prescriptive maintenance and then to achieve foresighted asset optimization. At the end, he briefed their smart journey and he said Big Data application in MTR had just started.

Dr. FUNG Wai-hong (Senior Chemist – Strategic Development Section, Government Laboratory, HKSAR Government) was the last speaker and his topic named “The Role of Metrology in Chemistry in the Upholding of Public Safety”. Firstly, he explained why measurement is important because it underpins the welfare of a modern society and touched almost every part of our daily lives (Measurement is everywhere).

Chemical measure related to public safety including food, Chinese medicine, forensics, environment, legal measures, toys safety, commodities and pharmaceuticals. Metrology is science of measurement and its application.

After that he introduced the revision definition of mole (SI unit in chemistry) and he said it was no impact on existing usage. Lastly, he concluded that chemical measurement played a significant role in the upholding of public health and safety. Metrology in Chemistry ensured the reliability of chemical measurement results. And the revision of SI Unit “mole” had uniformly expressed by using nature constant and its continuity was preserved.