Making standards alive for trade competitiveness

SINCE the establishment of SIRIM Industry Standards in 2014, the service has been assisting many organisations to form a standard for their operating system. These standards have outlined the way business or production is conducted, governed acceptable practices in the workplace and ensured the quality of production, materials and outsource services.

SIRIM STS managing director Dr Norlinda Mohd Zawawi said currently there are a total of 43 SIRIM Industry Standards comprising 23 SIRIM Standards and 20 organisation or industry standards.

“These standards are developed according to procedures that are based on international best practices emphasising on principles of consensus and transparency with balanced representations from three categories of stakeholders, namely general, users and producers that have an interest in the use of the standards,“she said.

The entire process of developing a standard takes six months and includes research and deliberation with the project committees.

“The association, organisation or even a company need to come to us with a request for development of a standard. We will have discussion and once agreed upon, we will proceed with research work and come up with the draft to see if there is a need to develop it.

“We will study the impact of the standard and once approved by the committee, the development will begin,“she said.

The SIRIM Industry Standards caters to different group of stakeholders and is specifically developed for the group.

“I would call it as an add-on standard or supplementary to all the various international standards. Since most international standards are general, ours is designed for specific needs and complements the international standards an organisation may have,“she said.

SIRIM Industry Standards is looking into including its standards as part of syllabus in community colleges and polytechnics.

“These should be initiated by the industry and once it‘s done, the standards are taught in the colleges. Since it goes into the academia, students who have passed the exam can implement the standards in the job.

“When students with the right qualification are hired, consumers would be more confident with them, since they are familiar with the standards through the lessons in their colleges,“she said.

As of now, Malaysian Automotive Institute (MAI) has the standards developed by SIRIM Industry Standards as basis for its industry training.

Norlinda said SIRIM has also developed Organisation Standards for government departments and agencies.

“These standards are used to prescribe detailed requirements of a regulation or to provide guidance to the public and industries on compliance to regulations.“

Among agencies and government departments that have engaged with SIRIM to develop their organisation standards are the Department of Public Works, Department of Veterinary Services, Department of Agriculture, Department of Prison and Social Securities Organisation.

Although standards are voluntary, Norlinda believes that all organisation should engage in having standards to ensure that the operational processes meet industry requirements or best practices.

“This would actually help them in making sure that the products or services offered are on par and standardised. It only takes about six months to help them develop the standards,“she said.

Among the SIRIM Industry Standards published are a standard developed for Universiti Putra Malaysia (SIRIM/UPM 1:2016) named General Principles and Criteria on Sustainable Development to enhance its performance, effectiveness and efficiency.

Homegrown standards that SIRIM has developed and promoted through its training and consultancy platform include standards on tools and best practices to promote an organisation‘s efficiency and productivity such as:

• :2016 — Green 5S

• — Requirements for Customer Service Management (CSM)

• — Requirements for implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) based on SIRIM Total Quality Fast Track Model (TQFTM)

• — Guidance towards becoming an innovative organisation

• — Lean Management — Part 1: Requirements for key activities

• — Lean Management — Part 2: Competency requirements for lean personnel

• Implementing innovation — Stepwise guidance

SIRIM5 SIRIM 6:2016

SIRIM 7:2016 SIRIM 8:2016 SIRIM 12:2017 SIRIM 13:2017 SIRIM 14:2017 SIRIM 19:2017

• — Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)

Norlinda said consistent with transformation towards Industry 4.0/Smart manufacturing or Industry 4WRD, more Industry Standards are needed to support adoption of new technology, resolve issues related to vertical and horizontal integration and ensure interoperability across the whole value chain, within systems and between systems.