PAD 252 Article Review 1 : Tie-up to safeguard biodiversity

Semasa PAD 252, lecturer minta sediakan 9 Artivle Reviews, iaitu article dari newspaper tempatan, yang berkaitan dengan Quality Management. Searching online untuk cari draf..contoh..skema or what so ever, tidak menjumpai bahan yang membantu. Rayuan demi rayuan, lecturer release 3 contoh article review, dan dari situ, pandai-pandailah nak hidup...Di sini saya kongsikan article review , harap boleh membantu. Enjoy!

Article:

WORKING TOGETHER: Cemex Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd and Malaysian Nature Society work in partnership to protect nation’s rich biodiversity and natural heritage

KUALA LUMPUR: Cemex Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, a leading player in the building solutions industry, and the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS -- the BirdLife Partner in Malaysia) formalised a pilot partnership recently to address biodiversity risks as well as protect and conserve the nation's rich biodiversity and natural heritage.Through the partnership, Cemex and MNS will work to develop a Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) to address risks at an active granite quarry site in Bukit Tambun, Seberang Prai Selatan, Penang, which is operated by a subsidiary of Cemex.The two organisations will also embark on conservation efforts at the Teluk Air Tawar-Kuala Muda coast Important Bird Area (IBA), a globally-recognised important area of high biodiversity value, especially for migratory shorebirds, and coastal flora and fauna.The collaboration will have the involvement of BirdLife International, which will provide guidance and advice on the implementation of the pilot project.Cemex and BirdLife established a 10-year partnership in 2007, seeking to refine Cemex's biodiversity-related strategies, policies and practices globally.The tripartite agreement between Cemex Malaysia, MNS and BirdLife was signed by Cemex Malaysia country director Fikry Sami El Kaissouni and MNS executive director Shah Redza Hussein, and witnessed by Cemex Asia president Joaquin Estrada.Estrada said the partnership represented the company's global commitment and efforts to integrate nature conservation into its daily operations."Cemex pays special attention to protecting biodiversity, minimising the impact of climate change and establishing global standards and guidelines for environmental impact and performance," he said."This partnership between Cemex Malaysia and MNS is in line with the global partnership that Cemex has with BirdLife International for the conservation of wild birds, their habitats and global biodiversity towards achieving environmentally-sustainable development."The partnership with MNS is an in-country extension of the partnership the company has with BirdLife. Following a Biodiversity Scoping Study that Cemex carried out with BirdLife, Malaysia was identified as hosting one of 12 globally important sites that overlapped with an area of high biodiversity value, presenting an opportunity to implement a pilot conservation project.BirdLife International CEO Marco Lambertini said: "The signing of this national partnership agreement represents an important new chapter for the Cemex-BirdLife Global Programme. I am delighted that our valued partnership with Cemex is enabling MNS to enhance its IBA conservation programme, while at the same time helping Cemex to increase the scope of its sustainability activities in Malaysia."Fikry said: "We are proud that Malaysia is one of the pilot countries identified to develop conservation projects."We have a huge responsibility to conserve and protect the environment in which we operate and this partnership is the perfect channel."In MNS we have found a partner that shares the same vision of achieving environmentally-sustainable development."We are excited that Cemex Malaysia and MNS are leading the way in conservation efforts with this collaboration and hope that it will promote wider initiatives at the national level."Shah Redza echoed Fikry's commitment and called for more conservation efforts by corporate citizens.He said: "MNS together with BirdLife International is heartened to formalise this partnership with Cemex Malaysia. This charts a journey of discovery and the raising of awareness with regards to our biodiversity, especially in areas identified as IBAs. Hopefully more corporate citizens will come forward and take leadership to conserve our natural heritage."Fikry said the partnership with MNS and BirdLife International could potentially become a benchmark on quarry management, and provide a platform to educate the public, starting with its own employees.He is hopeful that the project would be able to raise awareness on biodiversity conservation issues.Fikry said Cemex's commitment to conservation was evidenced in the series of conservation books on cutting-edge themes published each year since 1993 and in the company's growing portfolio of on-site and off-site conservation projects.

Read more: Tie-up to safeguard biodiversity - Central - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/streets/central/tie-up-to-safeguard-biodiversity-1.210274#ixzz2mORmweRz
http://www.nst.com.my/streets/central/tie-up-to-safeguard-biodiversity-1.210274

ARTICLE REVIEW

Cemex Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) and Birdlife International work in partnership to protect and conserve Malaysia’s rich biodiversity and natural heritage, which, quoted from Cemex’s Director saying, is the responsibility to conserve and protect the environment that we are working in. Through this partnership, Cemex and MNS will develop a Biodiversity Action Plan to address risk at an active granite quarry site and to embark on conservation efforts at an Important Bird Area (IBA). The involvement of BirdLife International is to provide guidance and advice on the implementation of the project. The partnership shows the commitment of Cemex to integrate nature conservation into its daily operation by refining Cemex’s biodiversity-related strategies, policies and practices globally. To achieve environmentally sustainable development, Cemex realize the importance of protecting biodiversity, minimising the impact of climate change and establishing global standards and guidelines for environmental impact and performance. The tripartite hoping the partnership can promote wider initiatives at national level and encourage conservation efforts by corporate citizens. Beginning with Cemex’s employees, the director wish the project could not only set benchmark on quarry management and provide platform to educate the public, but also to raise awareness on biodiversity conservation issue. Since year 1993, series of conservation books on cutting-edge themes were published each year, besides the company’s growing portfolio of on-site and off-site conservation projects.

ARTICLE RELATE TO QUALITY MANAGEMENT

This article can be related to the concept of Total Quality. Defined by Goetsch & Davis, 2010, Total Quality is an approach to doing business that attempts to maximize the competitiveness of an organization through the continual improvement of the quality of its product, service, people, processes and environments. Cemex’s aim is not only to develop its organization, but to develop the organization to be environmentally sustainable one. Cemex recognise the responsibility to protect and conserve the environment it worked in.  The eleven key elements of total quality practiced by Cemex can be easily spotted through this article. Cemex has strategic plan to achieve its conservation plan, which is through collaboration with MNS and BIRDLIFE, and refining Cemex’s biodiversity-related strategies, policies and practices. The project based on customer-focus, internally or externally, Cemex begins with its internal customer – the employees, by providing platform for employees to understand conservation and work together to achieve conservation, the external customer – the nation also were provided by the published conservation books and projects that ensure despites of active quarry activity, the environment and the biodiversity were conserved. Cemex not only aim on quality, but it is obsessed with quality. Using its own resource, Cemex wished to became a platform to educate the public on conservation and raise awareness on biodiversity conservation issues, also to establish global standards and guidelines for environmental impact and performance. To achieve its ambition, Cemex team up with MNS and BIRDLIFE, and they were all agreed on this long term commitment to continually improve, assess and refining their strategy and process to ensure the biodiversity and environment were conserved. The approach to achieve the objective is scientifically based, which there are guidance provided by BIRDLIFE, published conservation books to refer to and the Biodiversity Scoping Study that Cemex carried out with BIRDLIFE. Education also provided by Cemex to ensure total quality would be achieved in this project, quoted from Cemex’s Director’s saying ‘to provide a platform to educate the public, starting with its own employees’. Freedom through control, this element of total quality was initiates by BIRDLIFE, in helping Cemex to increase the scope of its sustainability activities in Malaysia. The guidance and advice given by BIRDLIFE could empower Cemex and could be used by Cemex in order to help Cemex to solve conservation problems within their scope of control. The collaboration of Cemex, MNS and BIRDLIFE shows the unity of purpose, as they all share the same vision of achieving environmentally-sustainable development. Employment involvement and empowerment enable BIRDLIFE to give advices to Cemex on conservation issue, MNS to help develop BAP, the employees are given better scope on conservation and etc.

Juran's Quality Trilogy

 Explain three (3) major quality processes of Juran’s Quality Trilogy.

Joseph M. Juran believes an organization can manage for quality. Juran defined quality as “fitness for use” or in which “product meets customer needs and is free of deficiency or failure”. He believes quality starts with knowing who the customers are and what the customers need. To achieve quality Juran emphasized that the management team should commit to not only the customers but also the suppliers and the most importantly the employees.

Customer, as suggested by Juran as “ … anyone who receives or is affected by the product or process…” of a target department. There are internal customers and external customer one organization should recognize. The internal customers are those who work within the organization, who demand services or goods provided by other department within the same organization. While the external customers are those who did not work with the organization, and are demanding for goods and services of the organization.

Joseph Juran describes quality management as the “Quality trilogy”. The Juran Trilogy of Quality consists of three basic quality oriented process management, which are:

1. Quality planning;
2. Quality control; and
3. Quality improvement.

Quality Planning focuses on ensuring that the goals of quality can be achieved within and through operational activities. In order to do that, the management team would have first, to identify their customers and determining their needs and demand. Then should they begin developing and design products and processes that will be able to meet customers need and to ensure that the goals of quality can be achieved under and through operational activities or actual production process. Quality planning can also be defined as simple as setting goals of the organization and establishing the means required to reach the goals.

The steps in quality planning process are as follow:

1. Identify the customers, the internal or external customers, those who will be impacted by the process or efforts to meet the quality goals
2. Determine the customer’s needs. The organization must recognize the needs of the customers and specifying the product features that will satisfy those needs at minimum cost or efficient cost.
3. Develop processes that will be able to produce efficiently the product features that respond to customers’ needs.
4. Establishing quality goals, which is to meet the needs of customers at the lowest cost with supplier partners on board
5. Design and Establish process controls to demonstrate and proving that the process is capable to achieve its quality goals under operating conditions
6. Transfer the resulting plans to operating forces

Figure 1: 3SIMPLE STEPS IN QUALITY PLANNING PROCESS

Quality Control’s objective is to document or declare that quality goals are achieved during manufacturing process. Quality control involving the execution of plans or to operate the process to meet the established quality goals, besides monitoring operations that performs with optimal effectiveness, to correct process and to detect differences between actual performance and goals.

Quality control consists of six general steps as follow:

1. Choosing control subjects. Select what to control, for example the external color of a Proton Preve, which should be Pearl White Metallic.
2. Choosing units of measurement. For above example, the accuracy to the sample color of 99.99%.The unit of measurement is in percentage.
3. Establishing a measurement procedure or methods. In this case, computer testing on the external color of each Proton Preve must be done in a room with no pollutants to obtain optimum test result.
4. Measure and evaluate actual quality performance. After the car has been tested, compare the accuracy percentage to that of the sample color.
5. Interpreting differences and compares actual performance to quality goals. The test shows the slight difference of 1.5% from the sample color due to the mistake of a new staff, who get the wrong color code and mixing the wrong color.
6. Taking action to correct the differences between the real performance and what the pre-established standard should be. Now, the car has been printed in wrong color by inexperience worker. Engineers in the company worked out a plan to adjust the color to as close as 99% accuracy. And the inexperience worker was send to training to improve his skill in mixing color for cars.

Figure 2: 6 STEPS OF QUALITY CONTROL

Quality Improvement could be explained as to take the established process to a newer and better level in order to produced goods or services of better qualities by using the resources efficiently, which are to reduce wastages, errors, and prolonged the usability of the goods / services. Few quality experts define quality improvement as obtaining breakthrough in quality performance/ to create a new standard of excellence, to reduce chronic waste to a much lower level.

Quality improvement involved four main steps:

1. Establish the infrastructure to secure annual quality improvement. The management team should inspect the machines are in good condition, fund are enough for the company to expand and improve, and the staff are ready to change and etc.
2. Identify needs for improvement or so called the improvement projects. For each round of project, the management should gather feedback from the ground staff  of their problem through the process and also from the customer regarding the product. After identifying which area to be improved, the management team should immediately draw up a plan to improve.
3. Establish project teams to each project, who would be responsible for bringing the project to a successful conclusion. The management team, especially the top management, should, in a meeting or discussion with middle level managers, deciding the members of the project team to execute the improvement plan.
4. Provide resources, motivation and training needed to diagnose the cause, stimulate establishment of remedies, provide corrective and preventive action & establish controls to hold the gains. The shareholders play an important role in this part, as they need to trust the management team of the company by allowing adequate fund to be allocated for improvement programs. The top management should give motivation and morale support for the project team. Cooperation among the project team members are the most important key for this step to be successful.

The importance of these trilogy nonetheless is for the gain of everyone, from the supplier to the producer and the consumers.

Quality planning is extremely important as it is a stage of development of products features and establishment of processes to achieve the quality goals and  to fulfill the needs of the customers. It also included an engineering process for designing new products, a production process for making goods, or a service process for responding to customer requests.

Quality control comprised statistical tools used to monitor and improve the processes involved. Control items such as defects in products, response time to customers, billing accuracy could be identifying in this stage.

Quality improvement has not less important as it could help in reduction of rework or cycle time reduction and elimination of any chronic quality issues.

The Juran Trilogy Diagram as shown below:

horizontal axis: time

vertical axis: cost of poor quality

Managers, the planners are responsible for the product and process design to meet the customer needs

Edward Deming's Profound Knowledge System

W. Edwards Deming (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Describe the four (4) Deming’s Profound Knowledge System.

W. Edwards Deming stated “A product or a service possesses quality if it helps somebody and enjoys a good and sustainable market.” Deming never defined precisely what quality really is, he summarized his philosophy of quality and management in a system which he called “A System of Profound knowledge”. The system demonstrates the foundation of beliefs and values about learning that have guided Japan to rise in its economic recovery and its quality products. 

Profound knowledge, according to Deming, comprises of four components which are inseparable and interrelated among one another:

1. Appreciation for a system
2. Theory of variation
3. Theory of knowledge
4. Psychology

Appreciation for the system is, according to Deming, a starting point in quality management process which would be the light for the management team to understand their organization better and able to make the right decision for the organization at the right time.

System could be defined as a set of functionally related components or activities within an organization that are interrelated and work together to achieve organizational goals. An example of a system could be seen in a fast food restaurant, for example KFC Restaurant which consists of Order Taker or Cashier Subsystem, Promotion Subsystem, Drive-Through Subsystem and Grill and Food Preparation Subsystem.

The objective of any system in any organization is for the long-term benefit of everyone from the stockholders, employees, customers, community to the environment surround it. For stockholders or shareholders, they would realize the financial benefits earned within a period of time. Employees working in the organization would be given opportunities for training and education as the objective of the organization is to produce quality goods and exceeds the customer expectation, employees would be and should be given adequate education in order to perform better and improve their skills in doing things. While for the customers, a system’s aim is to ensure the customers receive products and services that met their needs and ensure their satisfaction over the services or product provided.

The components of a system must work together for the system to be effective. For example, if the order taker who works as the front liner of a restaurant took the order wrong, without much doubt, the food preparation staff prepared the food as required by the order taker, the customer would not get what he demanded for, hence create dissatisfaction. The objective of the system to achieve quality goods and satisfying customers would ultimately fail.

According to Deming, when every part and element of a system is working in support of another part, ‘optimization’ occurs. Optimization refers to the optimum quality or result. To be able to manage the organization successfully and to achieve optimization, managers must first understand the system, what are the elements or parts within a system and to understand the interrelationships among all subsystems and the people who work in each subsystem. Deming was concerned for the internal competition, ranking and numerical ratings within an organization, which, according to him, should be eliminated to avoid demotivation and suboptimization, to reach the employees who are the main player of the production process in order to understand problems at processing level and also to convey feedback to individuals about their performance.

Refer to the example of the KFC Restaurant mentioned earlier, it is the manager’s responsibility to optimize the system and make the best decisions for all subsystem and everyone in it, not to focus only on a small part of a system. Without careful consideration and responsibility, if the manager sub-optimized the whole system, the organization would not be able to achieve its goal and eventually the whole organization would fail. For example: To improve sales and customers comforts, the manager renovates the restaurant, upgrading the system, and buying new cookware needed to produce food faster, but he neglect the training for the staff on how to operate the new system, how to use the new cookware and etc. As the result, the staff could not prepare the food in a short period of time, and due to lacking of skills and delay in food delivery, it would eventually lead to dissatisfaction of the customers. Hence, from this simple example, it is true to Deming’s saying that “a system requires cooperation”.

To understand and comprehend the interactions and interdependent forces of all elements within the system could benefit the management in controlling the events around them and manage the system to achieve the goals of the organization. The system would work smoothly and hence making quality goal a possibility for everyone involved.

Understanding Process Variation (variasi). What is variation? Why is it necessary to comprehend variation? And how does it affecting the quality goal of the organization? To understand variation, the management would know and understand what to expect in the process of working on achieving the quality goal, hence, prepare and predict future actions to reduce cost and wastage and enable to improve final product to meet the customer’s needs. By understanding variation also helps the manager to make the right decision at the right time.

Deming makes 2 points about variation:

          i.            errors and inconsistencies will always exist in any process or activities

        ii.            people apply the wrong corrective action when something goes wrong

Lack of understand of the process variation, many money were wasted as organization try to understand what has caused a problem in the process as a production process contains many sources of variation. For example, raw material for making a dress is differing in thickness, strength and durability. While tools used for sewing or making the dress are differ in strength, functionality and usability, some could be used for long term and some tools may be worn out in a very short period of time.

There are two types of variation, which are:

                                i.            Common causes of variation which refer to factors that are present as a natural part of a process, such as tool which has worn out or break down. System run by common cause variation is stable and has predicted performance

                              ii.            Special causes of variation or assignable causes are variation appears from external sources that are not integral or natural in the process, such as poorly trained staff, who cannot operate the tools properly. It usually would mess up the predicted pattern and is easy to detect by using statistical method. It is more economical to remove or replace compared to common causes of variation.

According to Deming, Variation is the main factor of poor quality. For example, inconsistencies in service due to lack of knowledge and skills of the employees and the ununiformed standard of procedure failed to meet the customer’s needs, thus frustrates the customers and breaking the brand of the company. Deming also stressed that variation increase the cost of doing business. For instance, defect items at Factory A were adjusted within the factory, this would add cost to the process as the item need to be rework. Even the product was adjusted, but yet it was not close to the expected quality specification, customers would complain and this would then increase the cost on field work such as customer service and more promotion or ads to assure the customers and to convince them to remain royal to the company.

To minimize or reduce, Deming suggested few remedy

·         Special causes variation should be identified by workers, who are the ground workers and the assemblyman of the products, the method work through the use of control chart with the support of the management team and adequate training, should also be given.

·         Common causes variation could be improve by changing the technology of the process. Technology included the machine, people working in it, the materials to produce the goods, methods and system.

Minimizing variation would benefit both the producer and the customer. As for customer, they are assured of all products quality is the same. For instance, the government who usually buy in bulk cannot inspect the purchase once by one, if they are assure of the quality of the goods provided by a certain company, they would buy in confident and perhaps increase the purchasing value. And the producer could increase productivity with less inspection on the production process to be done, and less wastage but more efficient in utilizing resources.

By understanding variation, the members of the organization, the top management to the operating employees would see the trend of the customers’ demands, they would understand past performance and so can predict future performance, they would also be able to learn from past mistakes, hence taking action to correct and improve their future performance.

Knowledge as mentioned in Deming’s system of profound knowledge, is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge, it is the general reliability of claims to knowledge and its bases.

Deming believes that ‘knowledge comes from theory and that without theory, there is no learning’. Experience alone without a theory of knowledge, an organization cannot learn from its own experience or from that of another company. For example, without proper knowledge of human resource, when crisis happened, the management team works on it and get it passed somehow. When the same problem resurface, they tried the same method, but now it failed them, because previously they did not acquired much human resource knowledge to handle crisis, so when it happened again, there is no guideline and theories that help them to analyze the problem and solving it.

Management decisions should be driven by knowledge, which are facts, data and justified theories, not solely on opinions. Good theories supported by data are not only persuasive, but it would also establish a cause-effect relationship and it can be used as prediction for future events.

Likewise, experience without knowledge, theory and justified data is just a myth which no leader would take risk on managing their organization. With knowledge, the managers would know how to plan, and improve learning in order to achieve the quality goals. Improvement and changes were seen as different entity. Problems could be solved with the knowledge learnt.

Psychology, according to Deming, is the most powerful component of the three elements of the system of profound knowledge. Deming believes that everyone wants to learn and to create. By learning, practicing and adapting psychology, it helps to

                                i.            Understand people

·         Interaction between people, employer-employee, producer-supplier and producer-customer, could be comprehend

·         Circumstances that affecting everyone within the organization, and

·         The drivers of behavior, which makes people, behave in certain way.

                              ii.            Nurture and preserve people’s positive characteristic

Management need to understand the above factors and integrating in their decision making process, then quality management would be a success. Deming strongly against rating the employees, as he mentioned that ratings and rankings of employees would rob them from motivation.

Management must know how to motivate the employees, how to build positive relationship with the employee, create positive working environment and also dealing with employees and customers positively.

PDCA (aka the Deming Cycle, Shewhart cycle, or Deming Wheel) is an iterative four-step quality control strategy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Psychology review shows that people learn in different ways and rates. Training methods and approaches need to increase learning for individuals and for the organization itself. For example, if an employee prefer to learn from doing things himself, then technical training is suitable for him. Training session which requires him to sit in a hall for hours would not only wasted his time to be productive, but would also result in low quality outcome.

Ø  Deming recommends applying Shewhart / Deming Cycle to analyze a problem and use Shewhart’s Control Chart to track activity. As an event occurs, it is plotted at the given juncture on the X and Y axis, each representing a variable such as time and date

How to calculate GDP, GNP and NNP / National Income

Assignment 1                                    National Income

ITEMS	RM Million
Subsidies	4,500
Factor payments received from abroad	10,000
Manufacturing	7,000
Public investment	50,000
Exports	77,000
Consumption expenditure	15,500
Private investment	14,000
Imports	75,000
Depreciation	5,000
Increase in inventory	400
Tax on expenditure(Indirect tax)	1,500
Factor payments paid abroad	12,000

                                                                                                                                  

Calculate using the above data:

1.       GDP at market price (GDP mp)

2.       GDP at factor cost (GDP fc)

3.       GNP at factor cost (GNP fc)

4.       NNP at factor cost (National Income)

• Suggested solutions for the above question