Some Observations and Learning from NPC Productivity Conference 99, 22-23rd Nov. 1999, KL, Malaysia

NPC, National Productivity Center of Malaysia, once again organized the above successfully in the sense that there was good attendance and a variety of speakers and subjects matters were presented and discussed.

The theme of the conference is : "Global Competitiveness Through Productivity". The subject matters covered are: TQM, Knowledge Management, IT, e-Commerce, Knowledge Economy, Quality Education, Education System, Public Sector, Small Medium Industries, Human Resources, Quality Culture, Wages and Productivity relationship, Farmers' Productivity and Income, TPM, Innovation etc.

The followings are some personal observations made by this writer for sharing with those regular readers of this homepage.

The Concept of Productivity and its underlying assumptions

Most of the examples given on productivity are in the traditional ways : to produce more output with less input on something tangible e.g. products. The unexpressed underlying assumptions seem to be wanting to squeeze every single drop from a machine with minimum effort. Benchmaking is made with other organizations or countries as to why productivity is still lacking behind. There is little examination of the overall system stability, capability, limitations or constraints.

I wonder whether this singular focus on "productivity" at the expense of the interrelationship and interdependency of the others interacting parts is the cause of the never ever satisfied illusive dream of higher and greater productivity. There were other speakers who believe that the concept of Productivity should be under the guiding ideas of something larger. (see below).

The Concept of TQM and its treatment

"TQM" seems to be still an appealing subject and several share such conviction with continuing practices. However many still treats TQM in a rather fragmented and activities-based manner, without any synergetic outcome that can create a positive impact to the overall business performance (whatever displayed good business performance seems to coincide with good economic time, but declines as market force weakens).

The lack of evidence of a positive operating quality culture is still a lamenting fact in larger organizations, with the conclusion that "top management must be totally committed" or the expression is uttered as an indirect complaint or frustration. This is rather a stubborn and mind blocking logic : IF (judged by whatever criteria) the top management is not committed, does it mean the end of a business of a good quality standard and performance!? Likewise is the logic true that a successful organization is entirely due to the top management commitment as the single most critical factor?

If a business entity is compared with that of a family and we examine the following logic:

• "A good family with smart and well mannered children is due to the total commitment of the head of the family."
• "Totally committed head of a family will produce a good family."
• "Smart and well mannered and successful members of a family can never happen if the head of the family is not committed, e.g. drunk, gambler etc."
• "Spoiled and delinquency of children must be due to totally uncommitted head of the family."
• From our own experience, certainly none of the above stated logic is true in its entirety nor should they be treated as absolute. But the theory and slogan of "top management must be committed" still lingers on. Where is then the pro-active leadership in each and everyone? Or, should everyone wait for the heroic superperson called the leader of the top management?

The Concept of Knowledge Management, Knowledge Economy & Learning Organization

Are these buzz words? But these are the words used frequently by speakers. Some advocate that people must go beyond TQM, ISO 9000, ReEngineering, Benchmarking etc. and move into Knowledge Economy or Learning Organisation. However, the new concept remains blurr and not well articulated to show any significant distinction between the old practices and the new advocation.

The emphasis on "Knowledge" and "Learning' seems to deal on innovation and creativity, with the use of IT. But surely, the underlying concepts of the old management theories do encompass innovation and creativity, either for continuous improvement or quantum leap. So what really are the differences?

The idea of going "beyond" may imply doing something more, move on to something new. Hence organization should either continue, add on, discard, leave it there the old stuff ... and move on to something more. More activities adding on the existing many!

If there is any profound insight of the new management theories, should it not be unpeeling the deeper understanding of the existing management practices that can cause collective wisdom to take place, instead of going "beyond". Otherwise, we are always in the incessant activities of catching up with new theories and concept, yet the old theories have never completed its own learning loop.

Government Initiatives

It is interesting to note that certain positive impact is created as a result of Malaysian government initiating many activities, campaigns on Quality and productivity to the public sectors in a very aggressive and no-nonsense manner for many years. Although the underlying structures that can influence the mindset and behavior of the government servants remain the same, thereby no amount of quality activities or campaign can really effect a fundamental and profound shift in mental model or behavior, there are many positive outward appearance of quality services. Furthermore the many officers and government servants who have been bombarded with the ideas on Quality, are certainly mindful and intellectually tuned to such profound concepts. This is a good sign and may become an important foundation for future larger change and challenges.

Large Companies & Small Medium Industries (SMI)

Small companies often cite their limited resources in carrying out Quality or Productivity or Improvement work, especially in comparison with large companies who have dedicated Quality Managers and staff and so forth. But from another perspective, the net effect is no difference!

In spite of the abundant resources on manpower for elaborate documentation, procedures writing, training, consultant advice, elaborate process modeling etc. etc. large organizations suffer severe disconnects that cannot produce a cohesive teamwork to make things really work.

Small companies feel at lost with totally inadequate resources to produce what on surface need be a Quality organization with massive documentation, training, audit etc. etc. in imitation with the large companies, or criteria set forth by certain institution or standards. Either they forget about the whole thing, or they struggle to be like swans, when they know that they are just ugly ducklings.

Surely real wisdom is not dependent on quantity of human resources, nor physical reproduction of what management books dictate.

Information Technology. IT

Many like to use the buzz words like e-knowledge, e-commerce, e-community etc. Everything gets wired. And the internet and intranet. But there were very very few who focus on IT as Information Technology, not necessary on its degree of sophistication, but appropriately apply to facilitate the running of the business with good design and infrastructure to promote collective intelligence among all members of the organization.

Sadly, as remarked by one of the speakers, Malaysia, in spite of its government taking the leading role to promote IT, Multi-Super Corridor (MSC) with the far sighted vision, supported by policies, infrastructures and investment, the Malaysians are not al all enthusiastic about the coming of new age that highly depend on the intelligence use of IT.

(A small group of us intend to do something about this .... Those interested please e-mail undersigned for more details)

Competitiveness reexamined.

Dr. Casper Shih hits hard in his presentation on the underlying premise of competitiveness. He theorizes that it is the blind, excessive and massive competition among the developing countries trying to imitate / copy / follow the four dragons that brought about the recent economic crisis. With high supply chasing for the limited markets, which were enjoyed by the four dragons in the earlier time, the competitive herd instinct bring a collapse of this economic game. He advocates new thinking in creating new markets, not competing in a already saturated market. His message brings home the message that we should not be focusing narrowly on Productivity, nor Competition.

Creating a new market, as per this writer's humble opinions, need not be just products and services, but something that can satisfy the intrinsic value of humankind, that can bring about greater potential and capacity individually and collectively.