Dr. Noriaki Kano
2002-2004 Chairperson
Asian Network for Quality
kano_n@ms.kagu.tus.ac.jp
Let me express my sincere condolences to the people of the Asian regions that have lost
over a hundred and fifty thousand people due to one of the most disastrous Sumatra
earthquakes and resulting Tsunami on record. My sympathy is offered to those who have
lost their family members and friends besides loosing their homes and belongings. I
wonder whether this also might have affected member bodies of the Asian Network for
Quality.
As the Memorandum of Understanding dated 17 November 2002 stipulates, my term as
Chairperson of the Asian Network for Quality (ANQ) expired on 31 December, 2004. I
would like to take this opportunity to express my deep thanks to the Board Members,
Representatives of the Member Bodies and all the people who have been involved in the
activities of Asian Network for Quality for their kind and enthusiastic cooperation during
my term in office. I feel that these two-odd years passed very quickly since I was
nominated at the Founding Meeting on 17 November 2002.
It was surprising to find that there were approximately two thousand five hundred e-mails
saved in my ANQ holder. Based on these e- mails and over one thousand files stored in
my PC, let me take this opportunity to briefly look back upon how ANQ was born and
how ANQ has been developed over the past three-odd years. |
| 1. |
Foundation of ANQ |
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The Asian Quality Symposium (AQS), the parent organization of ANQ, was founded by:
- Korean Society for Quality Control (KSQC) and
- Chinese Society for Quality Control (CSQC)
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| Remark:
-KSQC changed the name into Korean Society for Quality Management (KSQM)) in 1994
-CSQC changed the name into Chinese Society for Quality (CSQ) in 1997 |
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The First AQS was held in Seoul on 9 July 1987.
Japanese Society for Quality Control (JSQC) joined the AQS in 1991.
At the steering committee of the 15th AQS 2001 Daejeon, Korea, hosted by KSQM in
November, 2001, Dr. Chih-han Wang, President of CSQ, made a proposal to expand the
AQS to the quality symposium of all Asian countries and to establish an Asian
organization for quality. His proposal was immediately accepted by Dr. Sung H. Park,
President of KSQM and Dr. Noriaki Kano, President of JSQC.
I understood that it was a duty for JSQC, the host organization of the 16th AQS, 2002,
Tokyo to act on this proposal. After returning from Korea, I immediately invited
China Association for Quality (CAQ)
to join the AQS by contacting with Mr. Yu Xian Zhong, Director, Quality Department,
General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ),
China and Ms. Ma Lin, Vice President of CAQ who had by chance visited Tokyo. Then, I
made business trips to Taipei, Seoul and Beijing for consultation and negotiation as well
as frequently exchanging e- mails. All the leaders of the three organizations were so
cooperative from the long range and global viewpoints that we managed to finalize the
details of revising our AQS agreement at the end of June and to hold a tentative AQS
Steering Committee meeting in order to formally approve the affiliation of CAQ with
AQS on 27 July 2002. Moreover, we agreed to have a preparatory meeting with other
Asian quality organizations for founding an Asian quality organization on the same day.
In spite of very short notice, the three quality organizations from
Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ)
Indian Society for Quality (ISQ-India) and
Standard and Quality Association of Thailand (SQAT)
assembled at this meeting on the scheduled day in addition to CAQ, CSQ (Chinese
Taipei), KSQM and JSQC. CAQ was approved to join AQS, and we unanimously
approved the “Tokyo Appeal 2002 Expanding AQS (Asia Quality Symposium) towards
establishing ANQ (Asian Network for Quality)”.
The 16th AQS 2002, Tokyo, and the meeting of a preparatory committee for ANQ were
held in Tokyo hosted by JSQC co-organized with CAQ, CSQ (Chinese Taipei) and
KSQM on 14th-17th November, 2002. The following new members
Indonesian Quality Management Association (IQMA),
Iranian Society for Quality (ISQ-Iran)
Directorate for Standards and Quality, Vietnam (STAMEQ)
Remark: Later, ISQ-Iran changed the name into Iranian Society of Quality Managers (ISQM)
participated in this AQS and ANQ meeting in addition to the seven organizations that
assembled in the July meeting. At this time we declared the foundation of ANQ and
established the Board with the four founding organizations CAQ, CSQ (Chinese Taipei),
KSQM and JSQC. Then, it was unanimously agreed in the first Board Meeting that ISQIndia
be approved as a Board Organization. |
| 2. |
Definition of Asia and New Membership |
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After establishing ANQ, the first subject was to define Asia. We finally resolved that
ANQ can invite member organizations that are covered in the Asia Region as described
by either the United Nations (UN) or by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA). Based on
the resolution 49 countries / regions should be included in the ANQ:
Covered in both: 39 countries / regions
Covered in OCA but not in UN list: 3 countries / regions
Covered in UN list but not in OCA: 7 countries / regions
The number of the member bodies of ANQ started with ten and since then, the following
four organizations have joined:
Dubai Quality Group (DQG)
Singapore Quality Institute (SQI)
Bangladesh Society for Total Quality Management (BSTQM)
Quality and Productivity Society of Pakistan (QPSP)
The total membership of ANQ as of end 2004 is 14 organizations.
In addition, the quality organization from Nepal
Network for Quality, Productivity and Competitiveness Nepal (NQPCN)
has applied for joining ANQ and is under the process of the Board examination.
It is heartening to know that the population of the countries / regions which the 14 ANQ
member bodies represent amounts to approximately 3.2 billion people and covers half of
the total population of the world.
At the last Board Meeting in Delhi, Singapore Quality Institute was co-opted as Board
Member. |
| 3. |
Asian Quality Symposium |
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It is no doubt that the main activity of ANQ is AQS. While the number of the participants
was 167 while the number of the presented papers was 70 on 16th AQS, 2002, Tokyo,
participation after the formation of ANQ jumped to:
# Participants # Papers
17th AQS, 2003, Beijing, 430 121
18th AQS, 2004, New Delhi, ISQ/NIQR 510 120
I deeply appreciated CAQ and ISQ-India for their wonderful preparation and excellent
organization of the conferences. In particular, I understood the great difficulty that CAQ
had when confronted with the serious influence of SARS.
It was so amazing to see many graduate students and young quality experts make
presentations and exchange ideas at AQS who otherwise might have had no opportunity
to make presentations in English at an international conference without ANQ/AQS. I am
very convinced that these people will shoulder the future quality of “Made in Asia.”
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| 4. |
ANQ Way |
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Diversity from various viewpoints is one of the features of Asia. We need the common
understanding for the principles on how to administer ANQ and therefore we established
the ANQ Way which consists of:
Goal as the reason for existence of ANQ
- Quality of Human Life,
- Prosperity,
- Uniqueness, Integration and Inter-dependence,
- Customer satisfaction, Competitiveness, Creativity:
Strategy as the way to achieve the goals
Constancy of Purpose:
Systems Approach to Improvement:
Knowledge Development for Enriching Inherent Intelligence:
Integrity in performance and Voluntary participation:
Asian Way as typical attributes of Asian culture that are commonly displayed
and are distinct from those of other cultures
Harmony in Diversity
Mutual Respect and Compassion:
Austerity and Simple Living:
Effective and Efficient Use of Abundant Resources:
Core Values as the basic beliefs that govern the behavior and actions. If these
are in consonance with natural laws, long-term prosperity can be achieved.
Flexibility and Adaptability: Self control and Responsibility:
Among the above, I like to emphasize “Austerity and Simple Living.” So far, CAQ and
ISQ-India have made a great effort to administer the ANQ Congress/ AQS with relatively
low conference fee. I appreciated this as a token of this “Austerity and Simple Living.” |
| 5. |
Web Site |
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Immediately after the preparatory Tokyo meeting on 27 July 2002, the Tentative Web
Site for ANQ was started by the efforts of JSQC’s IT expert. Then, the current homepage
was technically developed by KSQM’s IT expert and installed and has been enhanced
and maintained by the ISQ-India’s IT expert. This Website will be one of the most
important communication methods among the member bodies and the people involved in
ANQ activities. |
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URL of ANQ homepage; http://www.anforq.org/ |
| 6. |
Logo: |
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The following logo was approved at the Taipei Board Meeting, April, 2004. I deeply
appreciate the ISQ-India staff who drafted this. |
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I personally interpret this as:
- The whirl shape representing an upward spiral of PDCA development with
dynamism
- The green part representing a prosperous human life and scientific approach
along with Goal and Strategy
- The red part representing enthusiasm and diligence based on Core Values and
Asian Way. |
| 7. |
Finance ---Membership Fee and Donation |
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The economic level of each country in Asia is so diversified, which presented difficulties
that could not avoided when organizing the ANQ. According to the financial theory of an
organization, the first step is to plan needed activities and how much budget is needed for
them. Next the group must decide how to allocate it to each member body as an annual
membership fee.
However, we did not take this way. At first, 500 US dollars was in principle set up as
annual membership fee as amount payable by most of the organizations while 1,000 US
dollars was set up as the fee for the board organizations. Later, the latter was increased to
1,500 US dollars. If any of the member body found it difficult to cover even the above
fee, we retain the option of her negotiation with the Chairperson for further concessions
in the fee. The objective is to discourage any organization from leaving ANQ due to
financial reasons.
In addition, we developed a very interesting and unique method for payment. Each
organization must deposit its own membership fee in an independent bank account
without remitting it to the Chair Organization under the condition that each organization
has no authority to withdraw this deposit while only the Secretary General has the
authority to direct a member organization to withdraw it. This is intended to make it
easier for some body organizations to pay the annual free under governmental regulations
for foreign currency remittance as well as to save remittance and exchange expenses.
The total annual budget from six board organizations and eight member organizations
amounts to at most thirteen thousand dollars. This is far from adequate to meet required
for managing all the activities of the ANQ including maintaining the conference fee at a
reasonably low level even though the traveling expenses for the board meetings were
covered by the board organizations or personally paid by the board members. So far, we
have been very fortunate to cover the shortage of funds by generous contributions from
many companies as well as board members such as JSQC and KSQM. I must confess that
we have not established a strong financial policy for the ANQ, which will be an
important task for the future board. |
| 8. |
My Personal Impressions |
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I had always thought it strange that there is an American Society for Quality (ASQ) in
America, and a European Organization for Quality (EOQ) in Europe but there was no
quality organization across countries/regions in Asia. In addition why must Asian quality
experts meet only at the conferences in America or Europe? There is an Asian Pacific
Quality Organization (APQO) which covers not only Asia but also America, Latin
America, and Oceania and this works very well. However, thinking from the cultural
aspect, there is a need for an Asian organization for quality which never competes with
APQO.
In this context, as I described above, I totally agreed with Dr. Wang’s proposal for
establishing an Asian quality organization at the Daejeon AQS Steering Committee,
2001. Since JSQC was the host of the 16th AQS Tokyo 2002 and I was its President, I
understood that I should work with the leadership to realize this Asian organization. At
that time, I keenly felt the weight of this responsibility.
But I remembered that I have had the following experiences:
- Since had I accompanied Prof. Kaoru Ishikawa to transfer the methodology of QC
Circles to Taiwan in 1970, I was dispatched to Iran as a technical advisor to her
government and helped to improve the quality of their industries by the
sponsorship of Asian Productivity Organization. During my three visits, total
duration 5 months in 1975-78, I fortunately learned spoken English which might
be called Iranglish rather than Japanglish. During the following quarter century, I
visited and worked with various quality organizations in India, Thailand, Hong
Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Korea, China, Indonesia, Sri
Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal
- In addition, I was directed by Prof. Ishikawa to act as the Course Dean, Program
Coordinator and Lecturer for the various international training programs with the
sponsorship of following organizations including:
Agency for Overseas Technical Scholarship (AOTS),
Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA),
Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) and
Asian Productivity Organization (APO)
As a result, I was convinced that my wide human network in Asia developed through the
above experiences would be helpful and, therefore, was fully determined to do my best to
realize this mission as if it were from Heaven.
In addition, I consulted this with Dr. Yoshinori Iizuka, 2002-203 JSQC Vice President
and 2004-2005 JSQC President- Elect. He kindly promised me that he would take all the
responsibility to plan and organize the 16th AQS, 2002, Tokyo. I could therefore involve
myself primarily with expanding AQS and establishing ANQ. After that, I did not do
anything about 16th AQS. Dr. Iizuka and his colleagues of International Committee
performed excellent jobs, indeed. Without their support, it would have been very
difficult to establish ANQ. |
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