HIDA JOURNAL 2014 SPRING No.4

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No.4 SPRING 2014 17From left: Motohiro Koshiba, Senior Manager, KKC Group, Kansai Kenshu Center, Dr. Iwasaki, Senior Managing Director, Takeda, and Chieko Yamaguchi, General Manager, Kansai Kenshu Center (In the central courtyard of the HIDA Kansai Kenshu Center after the dialogue)control.Iwasaki: One thing that concerns us when implementing QCTC is that participants vary considerably, although I suppose this cannot be helped. I mean, they vary at three levels: between nations, between companies and between individuals. Although we sometimes hear participants complaining about the level of the curriculum, they usually become more aware of the importance of adding extra knowledge to what they originally knew as the course progresses, getting an urge to learn more, and develop better understanding of how valuable it is to obtain experiences through exchanging information in group discussions. Anyway, I believe that QCTC will remain an indispensable program for human resource development in the future, not only for Asian countries but also for African and South American countries.Takeda: I sense that a lot of expectation is placed on quality control in Asian countries and other developing nations.Lastly, I would like to ask about those more developed countries in Asia, such as Malaysia and Thailand, which now require higher levels of quality control to achieve greater growth through research and development activities and technological innovations. What do you think will become important for them to further improve quality and raise their international competitiveness to even higher levels in the future?Iwasaki: I think that the important thing is to establish the right relationship with these countries. In more specific terms, I believe that, when looking at the world from a global point of view, more developed nations like them can help the world’s economy to grow further and raise the general economic level of the world by improving their own ability to develop technologies and strengthening companies in their own countries, which is sure to lead Japan to grow together with these countries. If so, Japan’s role should be to provide them with the support they need. However, it is also true that Japanese companies do not seem to have afforded to support them in their quality control and advanced technological development efforts in recent years. As such, it is necessary to start by reinforcing Japanese companies themselves, as the ideal relationship is that Japan can lead these more developed nations with its strong economy. The entire economic region of Asia needs to be raised to a higher level. In my opinion, Japan should play the leadership role in this economic growth, rather than just being part of it.I remember discussing “why quality failures occur” in a conference held in Hakone about 15 years ago. The largest problem identified in the conference was “non-quality conscious top-level managers.” I felt very disappointed that the top management of 20 companies, 12 out of which had already won the Deming Prize, had to discuss such a problem. Generally speaking, I think that top-level managers in other Asian countries also often fail to be adequately quality conscious.Takeda: If so, some awareness-raising training should be provided for managers.Iwasaki: As people in different ranks have different roles, I think that more attention should be paid to provision of effective rank-specific education. In more specific terms, top-level managers should participate in courses that allow them to understand the importance of quality control and how to promote TQM, middle-level managers courses that give them understanding of what company-wide initiatives should be taken for quality assurance and field leaders courses in which they can learn how to analyze data. I believe that companies can become what we regard as “companies that excel in quality control” by training their human resources in a well-balanced manner through rank-specific training courses. At present, the curriculum of QCTC is targeted mainly at middle-level managers. Given that the majority of participants are actually section chiefs or department managers, it can be said that these participants are given the right level of training. However, those who cannot analyze data are unable to take any specific quality assurance measures, resulting in wasted systems.I also feel that quality control is not yet adequately applied to departments like research and development, and marketing from the manufacturing scene. Perhaps there is a need to provide quality control training courses targeted exclusively at those in research and development and those in sales in the future. We have been using the term “quality technique” since more than 10 years ago, have classified quality technique components into three categories, namely company-wide quality control promotion capability, quality assurance system operation capability and quality problem solving capability, have developed human resource development programs to improve each of these capabilities in a two-dimensional framework according to rank and department, and have been promoting systematic implementation. I believe that human resource development should be carried out in this way in the field of quality control, not only in Asian countries but also in Africa and South America.Takeda: Thank you very much for taking your time today to share with us valuable thoughts and insights.

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