Singapore Government Press Release

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Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen

Good morning

I would like to start by welcoming all the participants from 19 countries to the 14^th International Exposition of Quality Circles (IEQC). This Exposition provides an opportunity for workers to present their QC projects and learn about new tools and ways of sustaining the QC Movement at national and company levels.

As we enter the 21st century, many quality professionals have questioned what is the future for Quality management and its practices. Some of these predictions are:

Professionals in production, design and purchasing will increasingly follow good quality practices as a normal procedure in their work.

Quality will be embedded within all business processes and will be everyone’s job, not just the job of a quality manager or quality department (This is already evident in the criteria for the Singapore Quality Award for business excellence, the Malcolm Baldridge Award of the USA etc).

Philip Crosby, the quality guru, has even predicted that universities and educational institutions will have students taking courses in quality management as part of their personal philosophy and not as a work-related activity.

These predictions may very well come true as we already have reports of non-work related groups applying quality tools in their daily work. One such example is the use of QC tools by scouts in Jamesville, New York to assemble first-aid kits for their homes. Closer to home, we have schools in Singapore involved in projects to monitor the weight of the school bags to ensure that heavy school bags do not affect the children’s health. Schools also have projects to limit vehicles in the school compound to ensure the safety of the children. In Australia, E-teams are formed where secondary students learn and apply the tools and principles of Quality Management during a week’s workplace experience in the manufacturing, service, health, government, hospitality, energy or financial sectors.

These examples show that QCs need not be confined to the workplace and that the tools and concepts can be applied in schools, community and social work- in fact, in daily living.

Today, the Quality Circle Movement in Singapore is 16 years old. As at Oct 1997, 389 organisations are registered with the Productivity and Standards Board (PSB). They have more than 19,713 QC teams, involving more than 143,858 workers. In other words, some 9.4% of the Singapore workforce from manufacturing, service and the public sectors are actively involved in Quality Circles. The PSB has in fact embraced another target - that is, to increase QC participation rate to 15% of the workforce by the year 2002. PSB will be working more closely with the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), industry unions, and associations like the Singapore Association of Quality Circles (SAQC) to achieve the 15% target.

The QC Movement is also evolving with the times. Apart from revising the QC training courses, PSB is working with the Singapore Association of Quality Circles (SAQC) to develop a new judging certification scheme. Besides developing a pool of certified judges, the scheme will help to ensure a uniform national standard in the judging of QC presentations. Details will be finalised by PSB in December. PSB and SAQC will also organise an annual QC Competition in addition to the two annual QC Conventions. The Competition will result in the "best of the best" QCs in Singapore being selected. The winning QC will serve as a role model and standard for other QCs to emulate.

I would now like to highlight one of this year’s Million Dollar Project winners-the MPU Team from Maxtor Peripherals Pte Ltd. The Million Dollar Project is awarded to a circle which has achieved more than one million dollars in savings from a QC project. The MPU Team comprises six members from various departments. The project chosen by the team was ‘To improve labour productivity’ as they found that productivity in the organisation was lower than expected. Maxtor develops, manufactures and markets products for desktop and mobile computer systems. Through their QC project, the MPU Team discovered that ‘excessive downtime during material loading’ was the main cause of the lower productivity. The team solved the problem by installing panel lightings that serve to forewarn the operators to get parts ready for replenishment. They also redesigned a system to double the handling capacity. As a result, the MPU Team managed to reduce downtime by 17% and helped the organisation save some $6 million.

However, I must emphasise that QC is not about cost savings only. QC can also help to improve our quality of life. The project handled by "Problem Busters" from the Singapore General Hospital is one such example. A winner of this year’s Outstanding QC of The Year Award, the team comprises members from the Plastic Surgery and Burns Departments. Their project was "To reduce time taken for dressing patients’ wounds". The objective was to reduce the pain and anxiety of the patients and also to free the nurses to attend to other patients. The team found that too much time was taken to open individually wrapped gauzes and lint; there was inadequate material for extensive burns in the pre-packed material; a long waiting time for doctors to inspect wounds; and also a long wait for the hand wounds to be dressed after occupational therapy. The team was able to solve the problem by packing the necessary materials to be used to treat burns into one pack with autoclave paper; packing adequate quantity of materials for various types of burns; devising wound inspection guidelines to avoid having to wait for doctors and to do lighter dressings for hand wounds so that occupational therapy could be carried out immediately. Although the solutions resulted in some monetary savings, the true beneficiaries were the patients who experienced less trauma and suffering.

I am particularly pleased to note that the QC Movement in Singapore is honouring the Singapore Island Country Club with this year’s Outstanding QC Organisation Award. The Club is the first golf and country club in Singapore to have QCs. Within a short span of two years, the club has organised three in-house Conventions and participated in this year’s National QC Conventions where six of its 13 teams won Gold awards. This goes to show that QCs can help organisations in non-business environment.

I think, one of the key ingredients for the success of QCs, whether at the workplace or at golf clubs, must be the active and the strong support from individuals-from the Chief Executive, to the QC manager and the facilitator. One such example is Mr Boey Keng Chew, QC Manager from the Trade Development Board (TDB). Mr Boey has been involved in the Work Improvement Teams since 1989. He has conducted talks, briefings, training and personal coaching sessions for over 120 facilitators, leaders and team members. In TDB, 10 of the 12 teams that he facilitated won the Gold awards at the National QC Conventions. Mr Boey is also a regular judge at the National QC Conventions. For his unceasing efforts to help promote WITS as a way of life in TDB, I am pleased to note that Mr Boey will be receiving the Outstanding QC Manager Award today.

Time only permits me to cite a few examples of Outstanding QC Organisations, Individuals and QCs. Many others, including today’s award winners, have strived for improvements and used QCs not only to enhance the quality of their work but also that of their colleagues and organisations. I am sure that similar examples can be found from the other countries taking part in this year’s IEQC which is meant to showcase not only QC projects from Singapore but also from other countries. On this note, it gives me great pleasure to declare the 14^th International Exposition of Quality Circles open. To our overseas participants, I wish you a pleasant and quality stay in Singapore.

Thank you.

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