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HONG KONG PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
213
In 1993, I mentioned in particular the importance of international quality standards such as the ISO 9000 series. In 1995, I urged the Council to consider implementing TQM to strengthen services to the public.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to bring the issue up again at the first meeting of the Provisional Urban Council. I will give my views on this.
The motion before us is divided into two parts. First, it calls for a study by the Urban Services Department into the implementation of TQM. TQM is an organization culture that centres on customers. It calls for dedication to attain customer satisfaction and thereby the enhancement of organization effectiveness.
Such a management model in fact originates from the culture of the East. Quality management giants of the fifties such as Professor Edward DEMING, Joseph JURAN and others introduced quality concepts into Japanese organizations. Today, quality management programmes have become the mainstream strategy in advanced countries. They are widely adopted by the private and public sectors. In the business sector, particularly the service industry, customers are very demanding. In step with the rise in the standard of living, demands for quality products and services have risen too. To cope with such demands, suppliers need to strengthen their structure so as to achieve better effects than before. In keeping with fast changes of our society and keen competition, there is obvious need to adopt quality principles. The activity perspective outlines when applying such principles are all covered by the TQM concept.
Cultural change triggered off by TQM is seen in developments from transactional approach to the establishing of market relations, from product thinking to overall service thinking, from centralized to decentralized management, from focus on individual to team performance, from a bureaucratic structure to the spirit of enterprise, from inward to outward focus, from slow to quick reaction to change, from measuring efficiency to assessing effectiveness.
TQM calls for the identification of core processes. In other words, one type of task activity leads to one result. Staff are motivated to participate in the process, or staff from different work sections join together in team spirit to re-engineer so as to improve results or reduce cycle time (time required for completing a work process). This coupled with continuing improvement in customer satisfaction will further enhance the overall performance of the organization. With ongoing reforms, work processes continue to improve. The momentum in motivating staff comes from benchmarking (identifying the leading organization in conducting a certain process and transplanting its experience). The incessant search for excellence is a continuous process to be pursued with the same intensity from mailroom to boardroom.
Successful examples of the implementation of TQM are numerous, including the calculation of productivity based on staff strength, enhancement of
Page 212 of 654
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