Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): ANQ Congress 2022

The Asia Network for Quality (ANQ) Congress 2022 was performed from 26^th to 27^th Oct 2022 in Beijing (Online mode). This year is the 20^th anniversary of ANQ. Parallel sessions and closing ceremony are in day 2. HKSQ has two speakers in parallel session 14 and 15.

Parallel Session

I attended the session 14 – Sustainability. Mr. Cheong Kah Leong (SQI) was session chair.

Dr. Kwok Pak Keung, Peter (HKSQ) was the first speaker and his topic entitled “Towards the Realization of Corporate Sustainability – A Componentizing Elements Model”. In the beginning, he briefed his aim for providing guidance to micro and SME on the action and initiative for corporate sustainability.

After comprehensive literature review, Componentizing Model of Corporate Sustainability (CMCS) with 9 identified components was proposed. Those components included Organization Sustainability Context, Sustainability Commitment, Sustainability Orientation and Innovation, Economic/Ecology-Environmental Social Emphasis, Integrated Risk Management, Value-based Action, Sustainability Capacity Building, Ethical Compliance/Corporate Behavior, and Organization Compliance. Finally, Dr. Peter Kwok concluded CMCS could help to understand where the emphasis of their efforts is and what should be entered into the corporate sustainability system.

The second speaker was Ms. Chisato Kajihara1 and her topic named “Differences in the Understanding of Environmentally Conscious Behavior between Companies and Consumers”. Firstly, she briefed the background and research approach to us. She said this study aims to identify the gaps by surveying consumers on their environmental awareness and actual behavior.

Finally, she showed some results from the survey to answer her hypotheses for the gaps. Her future research would be focus on targeted products and measures to mitigate these gaps.

The third speaker was Mr. Min Seo Park and his presentation title was “The Effect of Board Composition and Characteristic of Governance to Sustainability Reporting in the Korean Context”. Mr. Park built hypothesis depending on literature review and empirically analyze firms to reflect Korean context in sustainability report. He planned to develop regression model after the study.

Mr. Igor Pundel (ARR) was the fourth speaker and his presentation title named “Wastewater treatment of all types of generation by natural biocenoses with pre-detoxification”. Firstly, he mentioned the roots of modern water problems including wastewater toxicity, dissolved oxygen and CO2 in water, anthropogenic effluent discharge, deposition of sewage sludge, etc.

Then Mr. Igor stated the before and after rehabilitation that improve a lot on the environment.

Finally, he discussed with and without biological treatment facilities, as well as, proposed their Fractal Drainage System. Until now, there had ten cities employed in Russia.

The fifth speaker was Ms. Isuja Aryal (NATCM) and her topic entitled “Sustainable development through application of different international standards and challenges in its implementation- Case study in Tea manufacturing units in Nepal”. She visited different tea manufacturers and employed GMP for their sustainable tea manufacturing.

The last speaker was Dr. Roy Rimington (SQI) and his presentation named “Integration of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) in Strategic Planning”. Firstly, he mentioned current challenges including complex world, climate change, supply-chain disruptions, health conditions, rapid changes in technology and the digital environment, etc.

Finally, Dr. Roy Rimington proposed framework and roadmap of integration of enterprise risk management under the suggested model.

Before completed this session, we took a group photo for memory.

I had also attended the session 15 – Sustainability & Ecosystem for HKSQ participated speaker. This session is chaired by Mr. Zhao Yicheng (CAQ), I capture their group photo for memory.

Dr. Hely Law Ping Keung (HKSQ) was the fourth speaker in this session and his topic named “Impact of Occupational Stress on Work Performance of Civil Engineering Project Managers”. His research aimed to identify the sources of occupational stress that significantly affect civil engineering project managers’ work performance.

Dr. Hely Law proposed a conceptual framework and found that poor relationship quality had a negative correlation with task performance. Finally, he concluded that work overload, role conflict/ambiguity, poor organizational policies, low autonomy and poor physical environments were the major factors for low job performance and more counterproductive behavior.

Keynote Speeches

After parallel sessions completed, ANQ closing ceremony started. In the first part of ceremony, there were three keynote speeches.

The first keynote speaker was Ms. Wang Lin (Vice Chairperson of Organizing Committee; CAQ) and her topic entitled “Research on Brand Evaluation Model Based on Total Brand Management Theory”. In the beginning, Ms. Wang briefed different brand activities of CAQ.

Then Ms. Wang mentioned three dimensions for Chinese corporate brand environment and opportunities including Corporate Brand Building, Digital Technology Opportunities and Policy Environment. And then she described the research background in three ways.

After that she proposed Total Brand Management (TBM) approach including three characteristics and they were all staff, overall process and all-dimensional.

Lastly, Mr. Wang promoted the Brand Value Evaluation Model which was based on ecological perspective.

The second keynote speaker was Mr. Li Gaoshuai (Deputy Secretary General of CAQ) and his presentation topic named “Evaluation of Automobile Satisfaction in Southeast Asia”. Firstly, Mr. Li briefed the background of automobile market and satisfaction trend from past 20 years.

And then Mr. Li briefed their research system of Southeast Asia automobile service as well as Southeast Asia Customer Satisfaction Index (SEACSI).

After the survey, the SEACSI evaluation in 2021 was analyzed and factors relationship were obtained. Finally, he summarized that the research would help the auto brands of various countries better enter the Southeast Asia market. Lastly, he suggested the future research would focus on young users’ needs and new energy needs.

Prof. Shu Yamada (JSQC) was the last keynote speaker and his presentation entitled “ANQ Way: Guidance for Sustainable Growth”. Firstly, Prof. Shu reviewed his first involvement of ANQ in 2002.

After that Prof. Shu briefed the progress on QC and QM in the past several years. He also pointed out current challenges including unobvious customers and society satisfaction.

Lastly, Prof. Shu employed school education as example to explain how complex to identify the stakeholders. He proposed solution for the challenge such as visualizing the society in terms of product, service, information and financial value; as well as, digital transformation employed to collect appropriate data. “ANQ way is completely matching the current challenges as guidance for sustainable growth” is the conclusion by Prof. Shu at the end.

Closing Ceremony

Prof. Tang Xiaoqing (Technical Chair, 20th ANQ Congress 2022) chaired the session of “Full Paper Review Summary & Best Paper Announcement”.

ANQ 2022 had totally 127 papers from member organizations.

Then the best paper winners list was showed and there were 21 papers awarded (~17%).

ARE-QP Award Winner Announcement performed by Mr. G.E. Tan (Chairman of ARE-QP)

After that some short videos for “Message of Hope and Words of Encouragement” from ANQ Country/Region Representatives are played including ARR, BSTQM, CSQ, ISQ, HKSQ, JQCS, SQI, VQAH, NQPCN and PSQ.

Lastly, Dr. Duan Yonggang (CAQ Secretary-General) gave closing speech and he expected we all would meet face to face in ANQ 2023.

ANQ Chairman handover from Prof. Wan Seon Shin to Prof. Shu Yamada. Prof. Shin appreciated all members’ support his work during Covid-19 in past two years. And Prof. Shu would take up this challenge and continue ANQ way in the future.