Quality Circles Boost Business Excellence
This year, Fiji was represented by Future Farms - Team Kakushin at the 2018 ICQCC/ IETEX Conference.
Innovation and Quality Control Circles (QCC) are timeless tools for organisations that want to achieve Business Excellence. Quality Circles or QCCs allow employees to bounce ideas off one another and facilitating a freer exchange.
It’s also about giving junior staff a licence to challenge the status quo and ask why things cannot be done differently and better. It’s about teamwork and trying to achieve a common purpose.
So, through the National Convention on Quality, local organisations are provided a platform where ideas and techniques are shared to build innovative, prosperous and inclusive industries.
NCQ’s journey began in 1995 and is facilitated through the National Training and Productivity Centres Department of Quality Awards. The NCQ has benefitted many Fijian organisations. And winners from the conventions go on to represent Fiji at the International Convention on Quality Control Circles (ICQCC).
This year, Fiji was represented by Future Farms – Team Kakushin – at the 2018 ICQCC/IETEX Conference. I had led an eight-member delegation on an all-expenses paid trip to Singapore in October. The Singapore Productivity Association (SPA) hosted the 43rd ICQCC at the World Sentosa Convention Centre from October 22 to 24, 2018.
Annually, ICQCC attracts between an average of 1500 delegates from more than 330 teams across the 13 economies and beyond. ICQCC 2018 Project Teams from the 16 economies showcased cutting-edge trends, projects and practices embraced by teams across the globe, spanning a wide variety of business improvement applications in today’s age of digitisation and economic disruption.
In recognition of this, a group of 16 regional economies, including Singapore, take turns to annually host an ICQCC since 1976.
The other 12 regional economies include Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand. Over the past 42 years, the ICQCC has been regarded as the de facto international event for work improvement teams to pitch their projects to an independent pool of international assessors, with the intent of attaining international recognition and cross-learning. There was a total of 475 teams from 16 countries, which participated at the ICQCC/ IETEX competitions, with over 2000 participants and Team Kakushin was recognised with the Gold Award. This was a remarkable achievement by the team and for Fiji as well.
Team Kakushin won Gold at the 2017 NCQ and part of their winning prize was an all-expenses paid trip for a four-member team to participate at the ICQCC/IETEX Conference in Singapore.
There were a lot of new things to learn for the team and attending a conference of this magnitude was only a dream for Team Kakushin from Future Farms. The team was awarded the Gold Category, which was a remarkable achievement. The team also managed to see firsthand other project presentations from leading organisations around the world such as the Toyota group from Japan, Tata from India, Oil and Gas companies.
We also got to see first-hand the preparation phase and how SPA hosted this conference for more than 2000 delegates which involved a total of 475 teams from the 16 countries. I was also selected by SPA to be an international Judge for the competitions.
This is a first for Fiji. It shows the level of commitment through NTPC, also the National Productivity Organisation for Fiji (NPO), has made in its Productivity journey. It was an honour and a humbling experience to be a judge at the ICQCC/IETEX Conference. I was fortunate to be paired with a Quality Guru from United States of America, Doctor Chuck Aubrey.
Under the 2005 Productivity Charter, NTPC is tasked to work closely with Government, employers and union representatives in recommending appropriate productivity initiatives.
DQA’s role is to oversee and facilitate these major productivity promotions events:
■ Fiji Business Excellence Awards (FBEA);
■ Productivity Promotions;
■ Benchmarking;
■ Productivity measurement; and
■ National Convention on Quality (NCQ).
As we move in to the New Year, DQA looks towards strengthening its relationships with our industry stakeholders.
The team was awarded the Gold Category, which was a remarkable achievement. The team also managed to see first-hand other project presentations from leading organisations around the world such as the Toyota group from Japan, Tata from India, Oil and Gas companies.