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Dr. James Harrington announces the establishment of the Asia Pacific Quality Award during the Plenary session of the XXVII National Congress on Quality Control

Congress Program Post-Congress Seminars

Mexico City was the site of the XXVII National Congress of Quality Control and 18th National Convention of Quality Circles organized jointly with the 9thMexico Asia Pacific Total Quality Seminar , 8th IMECCA's International Forum on ISO 9000 and the 1st IMECCA's Forum on ISO 14000 from October 6 to 9 with the participation of representatives from 12 countries.

Mr. Agapito González Hernández, Engineer, President of IMECCA, mentioned that 27 congresses have been organized without interruption since 1973, positioning Mexico as the fourth country in the whole world with more years organizing national congresses on Quality, showing with this fact the great interest on quality improvement that the Mexican employers have always had.

 

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During the meeting of the Directing Council of the APQO, the last details of the Asia Pacific Quality Award were defined.

 

Participation of Mexico in the Asia Pacific Region

Mr. Jose Fco. González Prado, Engineer, current President of the Asia Pacific Quality Organization, APQO, emphasized the importance of the work performed by the Asia Pacific Quality Organization and the Latin American Federation of Quality Control Organizations, since they have fostered the exchange of experiences among the quality professionals of the region, making easier the commercial exchange among the countries of the region and making feasible the project of APEC of Economic Cooperation in the Asia Pacific Region. Dr. Miflora Gatchalian, current secretary of the APQO, gave particular emphasis to the participation of Mexico to the Asia Pacific Quality Movement since it has been a founding member and one of the most dynamic countries in the exchange among the different member countries.

Dr. James Harrington, honorary member of the APQO, announced the establishment of the Asia Pacific Quality Award "which will be a distinction for the best among the best" and at the same time it will be a motivation for the companies to continue with their commitment to quality improvement after obtaining in their country the National Quality Award. Mrs. Tang Xiaofen, President of Shanghai Quality Control Association mentioned that in China there is a good opinion about Mexican products and that the organization of this kind of events help to increase trade among the nations.

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Latin American Quality Movement

Mr. Miguel Brunet, Engineer, Director of CTEC of Cuba announced that his country is advancing in the organization of the XIV Latin American Quality Congress which will take place in Cuba on october 10 to 13, 2000 , a week after the XXVIII National Congress on Quality Control takes place in Mexico, starting as it is usual the first Wednesday of October of every year.

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Quality in the Construction Industry

Mr. Cesar Buenrrostro, Secretary of Services and Public Works of the Federal District Department expressed the interest of Mrs. Rosario Robles Berlanga, Federal District Governor, on this event and explained the advanced quality control exercised in the construction works made by the Federal District Government. It was said that indeed the quality of construction in the city has increased and that in the last earthquake of September 30, the whole world heard the news of an earthquake of 7.6 degrees in the Richter scale, intensity which has caused death and destruction in many cities of the world, while in Mexico City there were minor damages, confirming that quality is fundamental to preserve Human Life.

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Change Management

Dr. James Harrington was the speaker of the plenary session and talked about Change Management in which he emphasized that the only way to bring about change is to have everyone involved really convinced that this improvement will be of benefit to them. This can only be achieved through participation but also with the decision from top management to really structure programs that benefit their personnel. Mr. Harrington mentioned that the participative process is very important and that in the next millenium the successful trend to be observed will no longer be the groups of work but the work of a group, that is, how the work of a group will give true results and improvement. The so successful Quality Circles will become self-managed groups.

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Human Quality

Mr. Agapito González, President of the Mexican Institute of Quality Control, emphasized the importance of human quality as the foundation for the development of quality in industry and services. To have success it is necessary to understand which are the virtues of human quality needed for the interactions with different persons and in different situations , understanding that sex, age, hierarchy, economic position , education and religion will always have an influence.

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Quality Nationwide

Mrs. Tang Xiaofen from Shanghai explained how has been quality development in her country during the last two decades. The success was achieved because it was decided that the quality programs had to be of benefit to the people and this caused a total mobilization which gave as result an increase of 8% in the economy in the last two decades, growing from an income per capita of $500 Dlls. to almost $ 3000 Dlls. nowadays.

During the press conference, Dr. Harrington, who has participated actively in the development of China, said that while in other countries "it is talked about quality since many years ago" with no evident evolution, in China the objectives to be achieved every year are well programmed and when their degree of accomplishment is reviewed, it has always been achieved. He also mentioned that to have success in making changes it is demanded that the improvement goals are not long range as it has been up to now that the results have to be waited for 5 years but instead now they have to be set for six months both in the companies and in the government. He added that he is participating in the Quality Program of Trinidad and Tobago, where the government has set very specific improvement goals that have to be fulfilled every year so that in 5 years they can reach the improvement that Singapore obtained in 20 years. Mr. Shmuel Dotan from Israel talked about the development of quality in his country where they started to be successful when they focused on customer satisfaction and the efficiency of work practices because before that, they have not really had a true quality improvement.

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Quality as the Degree of Customer Satisfaction

Dr, Miflora Gatchalian expressed that to achieve customer satisfaction their expectations have to be exceeded and have as objective to get the customer commitment to continue preferring us as a result of the service received.

Mr. Chandru Idnani showed the model followed by his company to assure customer satisfaction and confirm that full satisfaction is really achieved. Mr. Jose Fco. González Prado, President of the Asia Pacific Quality Organization talked about Benchmarking an important element of the quality system, through which it has been possible to identify that quality is indeed a fundamental element for the success of a company but that productivity is the competitive factor that makes the difference. Also, when compairing the total quality models it is observed that there are three fundamental elements for the success of these programs: first, have as objective the satisfaction of the external and internal customer; second, have a participative process and third, the management style has to be proactive and above all, progress-oriented.

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Quality in Education

In the panel on Quality in Education, Dr. Miflora Gatchalian emphasized that an important factor in the quality of education is to make it adequate to the socio-economic sector to which it is addressed. It has to be achieved that the persons that come out from schools are of real value to the organizations and that the drop-out rates are decreased to the minimum. She criticized that institutions maintain quality programs in education in which many activities are performed but when measuring the results, there is no way to know what is really being obtained. She finished saying that the development of numerical indicators and its continuous improvement are key factors for quality improvement in education.

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Other Presentations

The first day of the congress 12 papers were presented covering different topics of total quality systems as well as cases of ISO 9000 implementation. It was concluded that ISO 9000 must be implemented because it is a valuable document but in unexperienced hands it does not add value. As for quality certification, it has to be re-oriented since upto now the emphasis on documentation has made certification to be superficial and it does not evaluate the key business processes.

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Congress to be Continued

These ideas put an end to the first day of the Congress and on the second day the 18th National Convention on Quality Circles will be taking place with the participation of circles from the Mexican companies Matsushita Industrial de Baja California, Caterpillar, Philips Mexicana, Griffith Laboratories, NUNATEX and a special presentation of Yazaki Torres Mfg. Inc. from the Philippines. There will be other papers on Self-Managed groups with the participation of Dr. Jose Gatchalian, well-known International Adviser on Labor-Management Cooperation. Dr. Gilberto Concepción from Dominican Republic will be presenting a paper on Proactive Management Style. The Forum on ISO 9000 will count with the participation of different experts as Dr. Arun Chaudhuri from India and member of the Technical Committee 176 of ISO who will be describing the strategy to be followed with the implementation of quality systems and their certification, in order that the companies obtain added value and besides, he will also talk about the characteristics and trends of ISO 9000 for the year 2000. There will also be more presentations on successful cases of ISO 9000 implementation in services.. Dr. Caridad Kesser from Cuba will make a presentation on Quality in Health Services which is fundamental for a true development. of a country. Applying Quality Systems in Health, Cuba has become leader in Latin America.

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Dr. Miflora Gatchalian dictated, previously to the congress, her famous courses on Sensory Evaluation and Customer Satisfaction Measurement

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