Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): ANQ Congress 2020 in Seoul, Korea

Asian Network for Quality (ANQ) Congress 2020 was held by Korean Society for Quality Management (KSQM) in Seoul, Korea from 22^nd to 23^rd Oct 2020. The theme is "New Quality & New Trust: Measuring and Sharing of Quality Trust Index (QTI)". Because of the worldwide spread of COVID-19, the congress was performed online through Zoom meeting. Before the Congress start, many ANQ friends in the meeting room and we took a group photo.

I also collect to Hong Kong team for group photo.

In the beginning, Prof. Panisuan Jamnarnwej (Chairman, ANQ) gave welcome speech. He said to maximize value and minimize risk that quality is the answer for the new normal under COVID-19.

Prof. Sunghoon Hong (President, KSQM) gave welcome speech and he appreciated Japan and India contributed large amount of papers. Finally, he thanks to Chairman and Honorary Chairman of ANQ to support KSQM for this congress.

Dr. Sangjin Lee (Chairman & CEO, Korean Standard Association) gave welcome remark and he mentioned the disruption of supply chain during COVID-19 and TQM had not been considered in the past that we needed to overcome.

Then Prof. Heejun Park (Yonsei University, Korea) was as MC for the Plenary Session I (Worldwide Quality Strategies after COVID 19) and then he introduced four guest speakers in this session.

The first speaker was Prof. Jens Jorn Dahlgaard (Linkoping University) and his presentation topic entitled “Quality Strategies: Before, Under and After Corona?” Firstly, he introduced the past quality strategy in the era of Shewhart, Deming & TQM using PDCA. This period was from 1990 to 2005.

And then Prof. Jens Jorn Dahlgaard introduced Quailty & Industry 4.0 period from 2005 to 2020 that Physical planet and Cyber planet together convert to Intelligent Digital Transformation (IDX).

After 2020, he proposed quality under and after Coron period that we needed a new strategy quality management (SQM) and new roles of quality managers.

Finally, Prof. Jens J. Dahlgaard used EFQM model as a continuous strategy development to explain stakeholder needs, opportunities and expectation. Based on Joseph statement “The 21^st Century – A Century of Quality” and he commented “Each century will become a new Century of Quality”. At the end, he quoted different gurus that it is difficult to predict the future especially Quality after Corona

The second speaker was Prof. Emeritus Noriaki Kano (Tokyo University of Science) and his topic named “Building Society Quality towards with-Covid-19 Society”. Firstly he briefed the current status of Covid-19 in ANQ countries.

Then Prof. Kano compared current status of Covid-19 in terms of Infected Cases and Deaths persons per Million (ppm) between ANQ and Non-ANQ countries. It was found that ANQ countries/regions had much lower death rate in ppm then western countries/regions

And then Prof. Kano explained it in the direction on process and quality of society. Compared the Vertical Evaluation (VE) to QA process (i.e. Based Model for QA: Process – defective to Inspection – rejective to Customer – complaints) and VE to Covid-19 Process (i.e. Society system – infection Prevention to Inspection system – PCR Testing to Medical Treatment System – Hospital Recover/Death). He found that there were two societies such as Covid-19 Pandemic Society and Covid-19 Free Society.

Finally, he found that Covid-19 Eradication Society that most countries / regions were not able to adopt it and probably bankruptcy (except China). Another solution was Coexisting Society with Covid-19 (wC) that could be adopted based on infected number under control. He concluded that wC could be the choice between Covid-19 Free Society and Covid-19 Pandemic Society.

The third speaker was Mr. Janak Mehta (Chairman and Managing Director of TQMI) and his topic entitled “COVID-19 and its impact on people and the way business and quality is being managed”. Firstly he quoted John Hopkins University data on global corona map (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html).

Then Mr. Mehta discussed the worldwide business strategy after the Covid-19 that was different from the past in different operating models that had pushed companies over the technology tipping point.

After that he showed some experience sharing that attempting in India to leverage technology to add value to customer through TQMI ICT business for Quality 4.0.

Finally, ICT solutions based on 4E (Empowerment, Employees, Effectively and Efficiently) Adoption, Analytics and Performance Management were demonstrated especially the Digital Twin for advanced predictive solutions on mobility industry.

Dr. Gregory H. Watson (EUR. Ing) was the last speaker and his topic was “Coping with Global Turbulence … Crafting a Quality Approach”. In the beginning, Dr. Watson shared the global megatrends from ASQ and commented the “whirlwind of change” is totally confusing!

Then he added Covid-19 was just one of many global challenges and we must learn how to attack these problems as a system in order to increase the quality of life for humanity! And then he briefed the socio-technical trends that full of uncertainty and risk.

After that Dr. Watson explained increasingly complex socio-technical system with continued risk we faced that we needed to reduce such complexity through process engineering and system thinking.

Lastly, Dr. Watson quoted Kaoru Ishikawa’s benediction on quality for humanity and he said “Quality makes sense out of non-sense!”. He concluded quality that a persistent pursuit of goodness coupled tightly with a relentless avoidance of badness.

IKA Award Ceremony

Mr. Janak Mehta (Chair, IKA Committee, ANQ) introduced the history of Ishikawa-Kano (IKA) Award that award established in 2009 to recognize people from Asia who have made contribution to the quality management.

First award was presented at ANQ Congress 2010. In order to provide opportunity for more professionals form various member organizations to be recognized that enhanced two categories to Gold and Silver Award since 2017

1. IKA Gold Medal: To be awarded to professionals from the field of quality management who mad unique contribution to the cause of quality through his/her work in development of theory, application and dissemination of quality principles, concepts and methods over a long period of time with humility and compassion. (Impacting many regions of the world)

2. IKA Silver Medal: To be awarded to professionals from the field of quality management who made outstanding contribution to the cause of quality in their respective country and in Asia over a long period of time (at least 15 years). (Either academic work, effective application and widespread dissemination of quality)

The first IKA Silver Medal awardee in ANQ Congress 2020 was Mr. Yukihiro Ando (Application as Consultant) who had made outstanding contribution to the cause of quality by guiding many well-known companies in Japan, Thailand, India, USA and Singapore over a long period in their effort to use TQM for enhancing business performance.

The second IKA Silver Medal awardee was Mr. Li Xiyong (Chairman of the Board, Yanzhou Coal Mining Company Limited, China) (Application as Executive) who had made outstanding contribution to the cause of quality through effective application of quality principles and methods in Coal mining companies in China and its subsidiaries in Australia.

The third IKA Silver Medal awardee was Dr. Kamran Moosa (Principal Consultant & CEO, PIQC Institute of Quality, Pakistan) (Application as Consultant) who had made outstanding contribution to the cause of quality through training and consultancy in the field of quality management amongst many companies in Pakistan and widely disseminating knowledge of quality principles and methods in Pakistan and Middle East countries.

The fourth IKA Silver Medal awardee was Mr. Nikolay Khersonskiy (General Director, SOYUZSERT LLC, Accreditation body & VP ROQ) (Dissemination as Administrator) who had made outstanding contribution to the cause of quality through development of standards / methods and widely disseminating knowledge and implementation of quality systems and other standards / methods in Russia and Central Asian countries.

After that Mr. Janak Mehta reviewed the statistics for IKA in ANQ members.

At the end of IKA award ceremony, Prof. Kano shared his memory with Professor Kaoru Ishikawa through his PhD in engineering from the University of Tokyo.

Parallel Sessions

I was the chair in Session 9 – Quality Innovation and R&D. Firstly, we took a session group photo for memory.

The first speaker in the session was Mr. Yoshimasa Koyama (Keio University) and his topic named “Understanding activation of management system certification in society”.

He reviewed previous studies and then proposed new activation model as following diagram and shared to understanding mutual relationship based on merits of certification so as to make a new model.

The second speaker was Dr. Sho Kawasaki (J.F. Oberlin University) and his presentation was “Navigation Style Manual for Questionnaire Analysis”. He introduced the example of applying a driving navigation style manual to analyse the online “smartphone satisfaction survey” conducted for students.

He presented a case study to use multi-group principal component regression analysis and showed the concept of dual-sided causal analysis.

The third speaker was Mr. Abhilash Verma (Tata Steel) and his title named “Data driven approach to investigate failure of Blast furnace stove domes”. Firstly, he introduced the integrated steel plant process flow and failure history of blast furnace to us.

And then he introduced Failure Susceptibility Index (FSI) to take account of combination of factors influencing the health of the stoves. He concluded to combine the effect of pollutants (SOx + NOx) and dome temperature to predict the likelihood of failure in dew point corrosion and stress corrosion cracking modes.

The forth speaker was Mr. Abhinav Singhvi (Tata Steel) and his presentation entitled “Achieving benchmark performance at LD#1, Tata Steel India”. In the beginning, Mr. Singhvi introduced five steps of Linz-Donawitz (LD) process (or Basic Oxygen Process) from Tapping steel to charging HM & Scrap, Blowing/Refining, Sampling and Tapping steel again.

Finally, Mr. Singhvi briefed different failure mode and proposed 5 steps towards the sustainable process.

I was the last speaker and my topic entitled “Extension Business Innovation Model Approach in Covid-19 Outbreak Situation”. In the beginning, I briefed the impact of Covid-19 in HK and China and then briefed the change of customer behaviour after Covid-19.

Then I briefed the business model canvas (BMC) and introduced the Extenics and Extension Innovation Method (METS). CityU employed in this study.

Finally, I proposed the Extension Business Innovation Model (ExMIB) which combined BMC and METS to create different innovative solution for CityU teaching, learning and laboratory work under isolated situation.

Two Hong Kong speakers were in different parallel sessions. Prof. Philip Chan took some photos for his post-doc students. (I saw my old friend Prof. Masaaki Kaneko (Japan) in lower left hand side)

Dr. Tsang Wai Chun, Marianna was the chair of parallel session 10 – Quality Management and her presentation topic named “Enhancement of Corporate Governance in Small to Medium Size Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) in Hong Kong from the Board’s Perspective.

Dr. Chiu Chi Sing Cook was presented in parallel session 11 – Quality and Human Behavior and his topic entitled “Exploratory Study on Synergy of Sustainability Model between Time Bank and Innovative Elderly.

After parallel session presentation, I joined back to ASA Award Ceremony & ARE-QP Award Ceremony which was also at the same time of parallel session but longer time. We all participants and winners took a group photo at the end.