Symposium on Total Quality Management
On August 30-31, the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and Tokyo University of Information Sciences (TUIS) organized a symposium on 'Quality Management and the Deming Prize' at AIT Conference Center. Professor Jean Louis Armand, AIT President presided over the opening ceremony with 113 participants from industries, institutions, quality certifying institutions and AIT community attending the symposium.
The two-day symposium focused on issues and outlook of Total Quality Management (TQM), business strategy for excellence as well as quality assurance and auditing of the system in order to enhance knowledge and awareness of TQM and its implication to business improvement. Amid a rapid change of marketplace and an increasing competition in today's business environment, organizations are now exploring opportunities to maximize customers' satisfaction and improve quality of services and products to be more demand-driven and client-oriented. TQM is gaining momentum in manufacturing, services and other business sectors as a quality and management philosophy that drives organizations towards achieving sustainable business excellence. Presently, TQM concept is implemented worldwide. The number of companies seeking certification- in the ISO 9000 series- is accelerating rapidly.
The Deming Prize, a quality award providing valuable framework for performance excellence and helping assess performance on a wide range of key business indicator, was, therefore, highlighted on this symposium so as to provide exposure and understanding on this award, its methods and performance guideline and indicators.
To demonstrate and transfer technical know-how on the implementation of TQM in actual business environment, two case studies of Thailand-based companies, winning the Deming Prize last year-Thai Carbon Black Public Co., and Thai Acrylic Fibre Co., Ltd.- were presented. Participants took a field trip to these two companies on August 31.