Networking for Quality

Sustainable prosperity – at global or organizational levels – is not possible without a mass of people who prescribe to standard norms, have shared ideas, exhibit behaviors and customs of supporting mutual happiness, peace and well-being. It is possible to create such a quality culture through proper nurturing of the people to inculcate quality mindset. However, this arduous task needs a long term strategic educational direction. Students’ Quality Circles (SQC) – an adapted version of QCC (Quality Control Circles) principles – is used in academia to involve students at their early ages in collaboration, mutual learning, and developing positive skills in identifying, analyzing and solving recurring problems at home and schools. These students – the future policy makers, executives, managers and workers in different fields – will become total quality persons possessing good as well as smart characters. A two-dimensional model, TQP Character Grid is conceptualized to explain these two traits of a person. Moreover, a psychometric instrument for objectively measuring an individual’s TQP Index with validity, reliability and practicality is also developed. The annual Mansha Memorial TQP Award (MM-TQP-A) has also been established in Nepal since 2015.

A three-day Asia Pacific Quality Organisation’s 16th International Conference on Quality (ICQ, 2010 Nepal) concluded on September 20, 2010, ushering in a radiant era on the quality movement in Nepal. Prof Dinesh P Chapagain, Honarary Chairman of Network for Quality, Productivity and Competitiveness, Nepal (NQPCN) reports on the quality movement in Nepal. The report was published in Quality India at the occasion of the Asian Quality Congress organized by Asian network for Quality (ANQ), October 2010.

Professor Dinesh P. Chapagain, Chairman of the International Conference on Quality while welcoming delegates at the conference talked about three classifications of values as personal values, social values and economic values that will be created during the enhancement of quality in individuals, quality in community and quality in transaction, respectively. The International conference was held at Kathmandu Nepal in September 2010 as 16th Conference of Asia pacific Organization and was hosted by Network for Quality, Productivity and Competitiveness, Nepal (NQPCN).

Defining quality is really an arduous job. However, if we start looking at various perspectives of different stakeholders involved on producing and enjoying quality, and also protecting all from the side effects of bad quality, we will be clear on understanding the total paradigm of quality and define it to its near edge. Prof. Dinesh P. Chapagain has highlighted twenty three different modes of perceiving quality by different stakeholders of quality. The paper was published in a short and edited version in June 2012 issue of New Business Age, Nepal.

Some people take craftsmanship is the only one dimension of quality but it is not. However, many people understand craftsmanship is one of the most important dimensions of quality. Craftsmanship is an inner strength of a maker or a group of makers as an aptitude, ability and dexterity of producing products or delivering services to satisfy him/ herself or themselves, and eventually to capture the minds of some specific customers. Craftsmanship is required for a full cycle of design to work to produce quality. The paper written by Prof. Dinesh P. Chapagain was published in the August 2012 Issue of New Business Age, Nepal.

The concept of quality in terms definition, strategy and aims are continuously changing as per the changed business environment. The Stakeholder Model of Quality (SMQ) can be seen as fundamentally different from any previous quality models. Indeed, it is so different that it can be seen as representing an emerging third generation of quality that will gradually replace those that came earlier, like SQC, ISO, TQM, etc. No doubt, its focus is still on quality, but the way in which quality is addressed is different. The Stakeholder Model of Quality is most appropriate for enhancing competitiveness of an organization in the current business environment. If we aim for national development, the stakeholder model of quality realization, which is essentially about networking for quality, is the appropriate strategy. To actualize such a strategy, NQPCN strives to work toward creating win-win situations for all stakeholders and operate collaboratively for national development. Let us join hands in this endeavour. The seminar paper was prepared and presented by Prof. Dinesh Chapagain at the 5th Nepal AOTS Quality Seminar at Kathmandu, in October 2008.

Japan as it stands today, is due to the efforts of Japanese people who were smart enough to adopt the foreign technology and management philosophy and develop suitable technological and management systems that can be effectively and efficiently applied for the development of the country. Japan has adapted and used few general management system, human resources management practices and operations/production management practices which are unique to the western management system. The brief overview of these unique management systems like management philosophy and corporate identity, ownership structure, corporate structure, company strategy, Ringi system and decision making, and communication are provided in the paper. The human resources management practices like lifetime employment, seniority based promotion and wage system and groupism are unique in Japan. And, Just-in-time production system, subcontracting and Quality Control Circles are unique operations/production management practices. This brief overview of Japanese Style Management was prepared and used by DInesh P. Chapagain at various JASMAN trainings conducted at different parts of Nepal in collaboration with the AOTS Japan, since 1998.

Power Point presentation slides containing the introduction of Total Quality Management concepts explaining the need of TQM approach to enhance competitiveness are compiled to explain the necessity to transfer the important quality management approach to workplaces and practices rather than only displaying in the signboards and slogans. The PPT slides contain the TQM’s shared philosophy, common goal, common languages and common approach as an introduction to TQM in a simple way. Famous business performance excellence models like Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award and European Foundation for Quality Management Award models are provided together with the FNCCI National Excellence Award (Nepal). The power point slides are prepared and used by Prof. Dinesh P. Chapagain to introduce the concept of TQM to management students, business managers and quality engineers in Nepal.

Three components of Japanese style management: (1) Small group activities (QCC), (2) Five “S” approach and (3) Fixed position photographic technique are blended together to develop a working concept or approach for Human Oriented Workplace Improvement Program (HOWIMP). This concept is gaining popularity in Nepal, and is giving benefits to them, wherever it is applied. Three cases where this program is applied in Nepal are presented. They suggest that the Human Oriented Workplace Improvement Program (HOWIMP) implemented with SF5S approach can produce benefits to all. BISCONS, a development and management consultants is promoting this concept providing training, seminars and consulting services for implementation. The following benefits can be generalized after evaluating the cases: Harmony among workers developed, Clean and safe environment created at the workplace, Workers motivated to make continuous improvement at the workplace, Workers cooperated to introduce improvement system at the work, Work efficiency enhanced due to organized workplace, Wastage, cycle time, scrapes and reworks reduced, Productivity, and thereby, competitiveness increased, and Labour relations improved. The paper was prepared by Dinesh P. Chapagain for the Regional Business Seminar at Chennai in 2001.

Three important functions of an engineer are designing, making, and maintaining. Designing is the most important function among these three functions. It is said that one mistake in design may cause 10 fold problems while making, and 100 fold problems in maintenance. The way to avoid this is through the Total Quality approach in designing. This calls for designing a product, system or services by adopting a strategy of economically satisfying customers. Here, “customers” are both internal as well as external customers. “Satisfying” transcends beyond the static satisfaction level of the customer. It is at the level of “delighting” the customer, or even higher – at the “astonishing level”. This is explained by the concepts of “time value of quality”, “must be quality” and “attractive quality”. “Economically” means adding attractive quality features in the product or service without making it costly by adopting the principle that quality is free. Total Quality Design is a new product development strategy of Total Quality Management (TQM) which, if adopted while designing, becomes very significant in building a sustainable system that benefits the whole society. The paper was prepared was prepared and presented by Prof. Dinesh P. Chapagain at the Nepal Engineering Conference, 2002.

Quality people do not emerge by chance, but is a result of constant grooming throughout different phases of their life. Since the educational institutions bear the responsibility of developing the right characters of the person as a student to produce Total Quality People (TQP), they must be able to identify the character attributes that the society demands or requires. An experiment is conducted with Kano methods for the first time to categorize the quality attributes required to be a total quality people. This method is being applied widely to categorize the quality attributes of products and services since long. Twenty character quality attributes of a person are chosen for the experiment and feeling survey of stakeholders of educational institutes is conducted with instruments based on Kano methods. It is found that eight attributes such as Communication skills, Creativity, Risk taking capability, Sense of humor, Adaptability, Sportsmanship, Forward looking and Physical stamina can be confidentially categorized as ‘Attractive or exciting quality’ where as four attributes as Honesty, Commitments, Human relations and Positive outlooks can be categorized as ‘One-dimensional quality’ or ‘More-is-better quality’. Other six attributes like Knowledge, Self-confidence, Skills, Continuous learning, Desire to excel and tolerance are kept in mixed category which indicated that different types of stakeholders opined them differently. However, two attributes namely Team work and Religious are found to be ‘Reversal’ and ‘Indifference’ categories. The experiment which categorizes and prioritizes the character attributes benefits educational institutes for adopting appropriate strategies to plan and design the subject courses and teaching methodologies to produce TQP. The paper was prepared and presented by Prof. Dinesh P. Chapagain at the 5th International Conference on Quality, Tokyo, Japan, 2005.