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By Sunil G Wijesinha
Japan was the first to declare a nationwide “Quality Month” in November in the 1960s as part of its drive to excel in quality.

The initiative was taken by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE).  It is commonly known that World War II destroyed many of Japan’s productive capacity, and to emerge from the devastation, the primary focus at the time was production quantity rather than its quality, and companies were asked to focus on zero breakdowns. Poor quality gave Japanese products a bad name. Products from Japan were commonly referred to in the West as “cheap and shoddy”.  Japan quickly put in place many initiatives to correct this.

Quality Circles, the Deming award for Quality, and the Quality Month were some of the significant initiatives. Japan also introduced radio programmes and TV programmes on quality, giving step by step instructions on how to identify, analyse and remedy quality problems, all in the Japanese language, and how to reach higher standards of quality. The role of two American consultants, Dr Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran who triggered a quality revolution in Japan is also legendary Dr. Deming was brought to Japan by General McArthur who was the effective ruler of occupied Japan soon after the War, and later was invited by JUSE to work on Quality improvement, while Juran was invited by JUSE after seeing his publication in the US “Quality Control Handbook”. Deming introduced more techniques, particularly Statistical Quality Control, and the famous PDCA cycle, while Juran focused more on the human dimension of quality and used the Pareto principle for quality analysis to focus on the “vital few rather than the useful many” as he called it.

The Japanese however had their own twist to the western quality initiatives, giving more prominence to front line workers rather than to quality experts, and involving the front line workers by tapping their brains in addition to their hands. Japan also had a philosophy that quality cannot be improved by mere inspection, but requires quality at every stage, for which the education and involvement of the worker was a sine qua non.

With the declaration of November every year as the Quality month,Japanese companies and organization were expected to fly the Q flag, which is now registered by JUSE, and to have several activities to create an interest in quality, create more awareness of quality techniques, to convince everyone of the importance of quality, take pride in quality and so on. Many organisations therefore conducted lectures, competitions, and many other events. Japanese workers were encouraged to get together with their foremen and supervisors and study quality improvement techniques from manuals and books.

It was quite natural therefore for Japanese goods to earn a reputation for high quality in a short span of time. High quality became an obsession with the Japanese. With the influx of high quality Japanese goods into other countries and taking market share away from their own industries, many governments started taking action to improve quality of their own enterprises when their manufacturers were protesting about the influx of Japanese goods. When Dr Deming first went to Japan and saw the keenness of the Japanese people to learn and apply quality control and quality improvement techniques, he predicted that within twenty years other countries would be screaming for protection against high quality Japanese goods. Few believed him then, but the prediction had come true. The US commenced a similar Quality Month in the 1980s, with the American Society for Quality (ASQ) declaring a Quality Month in October to focus on quality. For some years there were Presidential Proclamations declaring the October of that year as the Quality Month. Europe too commenced the Quality Month around the same time.

November as the World Quality Month was declared in 2010 to unite global quality activities, and to focus on quality techniques, research, training and awareness. The idea behind it was that if quality improves throughout the world, mankind as a whole would benefit. While 14 October each year is the International Standards Day, and some countries celebrate Quality in October, many countries now follow November as the Quality Month.







UN declares World Quality Day
The World Quality Day was declared by the United Nations in 1990. It is the second Thursday of every November. The purpose was to create awareness on quality throughout the world and to encourage the development of individuals and ensure the prosperity of organisations. In 2013 therefore the World Quality Day falls on Thursday, 14 November.

In many countries there is a concentration of Quality activities on this day, such as full day programmes, half day programmes, evening lectures or celebration dinners, with top experts in the field of Quality delivering lectures and quality promoters being recognised at glittering ceremonies.




World Quality Week
The week that contains the second Thursday became the World Quality Week and this year it is 11-15, or 11-17, November. While some organisations celebrate only the day, others celebrate and have many activities during the week. Last year many organisations in Sri Lanka too celebrated Quality week, with competitions, lectures, customer service excellence initiatives, etc.




National programmes for the Quality Month/Week
Usually the national organisation promoting Quality would declare a theme and implement a series of activities. In the West it is common to see a celebration with an eminent speaker addressing an interested audience on an appropriate subject at a dinner meeting. Other promotional activities will also be implemented on a national scale. There could be national level seminars, competitions, Quiz’s, awards for significant contributions on quality, educational TV and radio programmes etc.
The Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Quality and Productivity (SLAAQP) has declared the theme “Global Competitiveness through Enhanced Quality”. The idea is to focus on the declining share of Sri Lanka’s exports and to regain exports through higher quality.




Typical enterprise level activities
The first is an inauguration of the programme, or a kick off, by the CEO with an inspirational speech to motivate all employees to become concerned with improving quality, improving perfection, improving service quality and so on. Many organisations would have a theme for the year and even prepare a quality pledge, which all employees would take at the inauguration. It may include the hoisting of the Quality flag.

Typical activities would include the following:

• Skit competition on 5S or quality concepts
• Poster, essay, Quiz and slogan competition for employees
• Quality slogans on all letterheads and material such as leaflets
• Quality slogans in the offices and factory
• Lectures by Quality experts
• Quality educational posters placed at strategic locations
• Competitions for employees on Cause and Effect (Ishikawa) diagram, Pareto Chart etc.
• Kaizen competition
• Poster, essay and slogan competition for children of employees
• Quality Circle presentations
• Cross Functional team projects on improving quality and customer service
• Activities to improve harmony between units within the organization such as one unit visiting another unit at which presentations are made to explain their operations
• Visits by non-marketing personnel such as HR and Finance to customers to understand the customers point of view
• Customer satisfaction surveys
• Employee Satisfaction surveys

At the end of the week or month there will be a prize giving where the winners of the competitions will receive their awards. Many of the concepts that are inculcated during a quality month sink in well, and are well internalised by employees. I recall the Quality Month we introduced at the Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka during the restructuring phase, where employees learnt of many new quality and customer service concepts. I recall how a front line employee complained to me about bad service received from another unit, complaining that their “internal customer” service was bad. I was so happy that the concept of internal customer had sunk in, although violated mildly by another unit. The visits to customers was a big revelation, because Finance was very critical of the Leasing staff when there were non-performing loans, but better  understood the challenges when they visited customers.

Internationally there are many leading organisations that have declared themes for the year. For example the Chartered Quality Institute of UK (CQI) has announced its programme, and this year’s theme is “Making Collaborations Count”. In 2010, 2011, and 2012 the themes were; “Out of the Crisis”, “In Pursuit of Excellence”, and “Quality: Delivering Competitive Advantage” respectively.

In Japan too every year is with a different national theme. After the earthquake in 2011 the theme was “Turn Crisis into Power: Become No.1 again by Quality Innovation”. In the following year the theme was, “”Rebirth of Quality Power; Definitely Japan Quality”.

Sri Lanka being a small country with hardly a domestic market needs exports to survive. Several Sri Lankan companies have been successful in capturing export markets by targeting niche or value added markets, since mass markets are difficult for us. Quality can become the means of achieving success in such selective markets. Similar to Japan, where Japan is synonymous with high quality, Sri Lanka too can reach this position. A little push from the Government would be welcome. So let us start this year with this November as the Quality month. Let us start with a few initiatives and expand in the years to come.

Having been in an export industry before my retirement it is sad when our foreign buyers would say, “your quality is world-class, but the moment you mark made in Sri Lanka, customers devalue the product. Retail customers in the west will rarely accept a Sri Lanka made product as high quality, except perhaps Ceylon tea. Surelywe can change this image so that in just a few years, “Made in Sri Lanka” would have premium value.

 (The writer is the President, Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Quality and Productivity)