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Presidents Welcome
As the National President of AOQ Inc, I am pleased to invite you to QUALCON 2010, which will be held in Canberra from September 28-29, 2010.
World economic crisis and globalised trade demands much more than ever before from a business which is threatening to stall focus on quality management. We require an ambitious and bold vision to address this demand. It is particularly important for business improvement professionals to look at innovative methods to deliver effective, evidence based solutions, and to engage with best in class leaders and political stakeholders to push forward with bold efficient actions. This conference will provide delegates from around the globe the opportunity to review world advancements in quality management, Safety, Environment, OH&S, Six Sigma, risk Management and in many other areas including best practice based on continuous improvement.
Throughout the quality history in Australia AOQ Inc has served the profession well. The theme of the conference “Third Generation of Quality” emphasises on the research, integration, connection, co-operation and application of smart issues to survive in this global world. The outcome of the conference will help us to understand many disparate individual developments in quality management that are in fact part of a wider, fundamental change that has major implications and consequences and how to cope with these. The conference will increase our knowledge bank in respect of the relationship between quality management, generational change, stakeholders, risk management and the important role we all need to play as good global citizens. There are many reasons to attend this conference beside eagerness to hear some of the brightest minds, to look at and learn how some of the best in class presenters in the world make it happen, to network and grow our circle of influence, inspire ourselves, to increase our priceless knowledge and most importantly share our thoughts and form business and professional friendships. It will be a fascinating event and there will be ample opportunity to ask questions and meet with the world renowned speakers. In addition to the above bring your family with you to enjoy The Floriade flower festival in Australia’s Capital city, redolent with the scents, sounds and sights of Canberra’s spring, along with many other social activities with the Parliament sitting during the conference as well.
Unequivocally, this conference organised by The Juran College of Australia under AOQ, once again brings together business and development educators, practitioners, policy makers, executives, government, non-government organisations to discuss unprecedented business management challenges and proffer solutions to these.
I encourage you to attend this conference and invite others and I am looking forward to seeing you in Canberra. I invite you to consult our website www.qualcon2010.com.au
Shan Ruprai, National President AOQ Inc and President APQO |
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The Changing Face (and Physiology) of Quality Management
Those attending QUALCON over the past several years will have noticed a consistent theme in my message as Patron. In a word the theme has been change, and more specifically the need for all of us to ask: Have the changes that reshaped society since the 1980s (when quality management was first fully developed) impacted quality management? My argument, which is really stating the obvious, is that the answer to that question is an emphatic Yes! That is not to say, as one author has put it, that “TQM is as dead as a pet rock”, it is to say, however, that if quality management is to be a credible (and useful) management aid for the contemporary organization it must (at very least) be re-examined in the light 21st century reality.
Since the mid 1990s quality management has been undergoing such a re-examination with the result that it has taken a new form and entered the third stage in its development. The first stage commenced in the 1930s with the work of Walter Shewhart. The second stage, which spanned the period of the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, is most associated with US consultants, Crosby, Deming and Juran.
What is perhaps most striking about third generation quality management is that has been developed by management scholars rather than consultants. The positive effect of that feature is that quality management now has an explicit theory, has rigor and is being accompanied by empirical research. An explicit theory urges a distinction between quality as an organization strategy and the methodology and tools of quality management and prevents quality management being whatever the consultant/user chooses it to be -recall the three very different interpretations Crosby, Deming and Juran were able to give quality management. The downside of the reshaping being done by scholars is its very slow dissemination to organizations – scholars are less interested in application (for which they receive no financial reward) than they are in publication and dissemination of their ideas among fellow scholars.
A principal focus of QUALCON 2010 will be an examination of third generation quality management. If we accept that quality management has indeed shifted into a new form our task must be to identify how AOQ can better understand that change and communicate the new quality management to Australian industry and government.
I look forward to participating in a critical, and long overdue, 21st century look at quality management.
Kevin Foley
Patron |
