Quality of Roads

Last week I went to UTM Skudai for my weekly lecture and also attended a meeting for deciding the winner for the UTM AKNC (VC Quality Award). On the way from Senai to Persada, where the meeting took place, the airport taxi driver (a Chinese about my age) talked about why flash flood occur in JB. He gave a laymen's reasoning on why it occurs. He complained on how small the size/width of the drains are, and also he emphasised in his broken Malay that 'rumah makin banyak buat tapi itu longkang sama saja - kasi besar/kasi dalam lah) literally translated as -more houses are being built (around JB there are many housing estates), but the drain are still of the same (size) - why don't make it bigger/deeper. I thought to myself, even this 'taxi driver' can think of how to resolve the problems. I just cannot understand why those who have been paid to do the job to think such as the engineer/s and planners at local council, contractors, consultants/architects cannot think like this taxi driver. I guess people are so tight up with their busy schedule that they don't solve these problems faced by the people, and mind you it is our own people, i.e. Malaysians that we are going to help at the end of the day.
Then how does it relate to quality. Well, I have always said that quality of construction can begin right from design step. During the design and planning stage, those responsible, be it technical peole and policy makers, must put the people's interest first, and MUST pro-activley design for the future use, not just for immediate solutions. THINK ABOUT IT.
I have not talked about poorly maintained drains - all clogged up with rubbish and sand. Don't tell me the taxpayer will have to clear the stucked drain by himself, is it not the job of the local municipal to check and rectify these drains. DO YOUR JOB MEN.

Designing Quality

High quality products and services must start from proper planning. Quality should be designed into products and services, taking into consideration customer requests and requirements. The design stage involves many steps all focused on confirming, verifying all new methods, technologies, materials and functions that has been proposed and developed. They must be tried and tested before the new design can go through the production stage. Wastes are produced from defective designs that are passed on to production, and vendors. It is acknowledged here that it is not an easy process, there are difficulties and all must comply with legal and commercial requirements. Come to think of it, achieving high quality products through good design must be set as a challenge to all organizations to survive especially in this difficult times.

Design Quality into Goods and Services

Quality in design means ensuring you have captured and incorporate all your customer needs from your products and services. Customer can be internal, external, user, maintenance people, public authorities, enforcing agencies/bodies, etc. Quality must be built during design stage. Design must ensure products are 'easy' to be produced, 'easy' to be checked and inspected, easy nice, fun, good for the user to use, and does not pose major problems (safety, usability, performance, etc) to all people who will come into contact throughout the life of the product/goods/services. Maintenance and after sales personnel must be able to disassemble and reassemble the components/systems of the products easily and time desired. Spare parts to replace broken or damaged components must also be made available so that repair time is shortened and customer is happy.

I don't buy a car to be put at the service centres for repair or waiting for spare parts to reach before repair work can be done.
Design for manufacturability is an aspect needed to be learned and applied by engineers. Construction industry has not advanced much in term of design for constructability since a number of infrastructure projects have faced with structural and quality defects even after it has been used for quite some time. The MRR highway in KL is a case in point that I can remember.

My suggestion is Think about How to Build Quality INTO all our Artifacts/Products/ and Services. It is difficult, I know, but, tell me what is easy in life?

Quality in Teaching

Someone ask me to write about the quality of teaching in local university. Many people has the perception that the quality of teaching in IPTA is average, not high. I have been involved in teaching various subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate. I can talk for myself and what I believe in, The quality of teaching as viewed by students (customers) are being evaluated by students every semester for every subject the lecturer teaches, in major aspects including - Teaching Delivery, Preparation, Use of Aids, Quality of Assessment - tests, quizes, exams, etc. Therefore, lecturers (and management) will know how 'good' the lecturer is based on this semesterly evaluation. The evaluation can also be used for promotion, yearly award, best teacher purposes. For example, if I got 4.34 for subject SMM2343, and for that semester the Faculty's average is 4.25, and the university's average is 4.55, then it shows my standing. Individuals can then be ranked based on this students' perception of quality of teaching by the particular lecturer. However, the lecturer's role is to facilitate learning, and if the lecturer gives a 'tough set of question during tests and exams' he or she will normally be given low ratings for assessment, and if a lecturer is 'strict' in terms of grading, class attendence, etc. he or she will normally face the same consequences. These are from my own personal experience.

Quality of teaching is also affected by many other factors such as the availability (and in good working condition of lab equipments, computing facilities to aid in the teaching and learning process. Obviously the lecturer's knowledge is the most important component. I think quality of teaching can also be observed by the level of motivation and commitment shown and expressed during lectures, and in the learning process. And to me, management commitment in the provision of adequate resources, and opportunity for the employee (read as lecturer) to perform well is vital. Same as in any other organization, management must provide the necessary motivation, support, facilities, resources, and monetary rewards for the professors to give his best. ...... It is not easy.... I have not touched on the Islamic perspective. Quality teachers come from the inside... Faith.. Iman.. work for Allah and not for Any other Creatures including man.

Reliability

Quality of data one gets depends on a number of factors. How do you know that a sample of 2 from 2000 over students that you have taught represent a 'true' picture of one behavior. Obviously, 2/2000 is only 0.1% of the population. So, the results surely cannot be conclusive. This is an aspect called sampling and it is especailly important in research, and probably in life as well. So, the next time someone tells you that 'that person' is not up to 'standards' please ask yourself. Is the numberof samples representative, sufficient, valid and reliable. Reliability can be checked thorugh content validity, construct and criterion validity. An one more thing try not to generalise from unfounded figures and 'facts'.

Quality in health

I just recovered from dengue fever. I was hospitalized from Monday 19th Jan till Sunday 25th January 2009, confirmed one of the 1200+ dengue cases in Selangor. Where I live? Batu 12 Jln Cheras Kajang. There seems to be no medicine for dengue, only this 'water' drips into my body and the '100Plus drink' which I took a lot. My lowest platelet count went down to 11,000 on Wednesday in between a count of 18k, 23k, moving up to 54k on Friday, 100k on Saturday, and 160k on Sunday. How I got it? I don't know. I can only guess. Long story short, I just moved in to my wife's late father's house after some minor repair works on the piping and roofing. The kampung house has a big yard in front of it, and the old fence is grown with 'lalang' and other growth. I just want to clean it up, but I forgot that mosquitoes come out during 'senja' time. Well, as what we Malays / Muslim say, 'dah nak kena', . This dengue is nothing to be played around with. It is dangerous, and I can still feel how weak my body was when I was in hospital. The dirty drains, I can't find dirty drains, the 'air bertakung' none. But, I did notice the guy who did the fogging on the Thurdsday evening before I got the fever, fogging intensely in one of the 'longkang pecah' in the main road. That night, there were many mosquitoes in the house. I think they have 'disturbed' the mosquitoes nest and set free to attack as many people as possible. I was one of the unlucky victim. Anyway, I have somewhat recovered, and I am now (at least in this moment of time) very conscious (read as afraid) of mosquitoes, and also the unkempt bushes and growths surrounding homes and all premises. I guess, the government must also try and do their part by 'fixing the broken drains, pipings, etc. Local authiorities must organise health campaign and 'gotong royong' to clean our living space. And, also please get rid of all the foreign illegal immigrants as they are a menace and nuisance to our society. They don't care, they are here to 'just make money', we 'have to make a living and make our life livable'. As for me I will ensure that quality of environment will always be assured to ensure quality of life and healthy Malaysian citizens.

Total Quality

The word total in total quality management signifies the ultimate importance about managing quality by all organizations. Management must not only be committed to the quality efforts, they must be well versed about everything in 'quality knowledge', they must lead in the struggle to reach organizational excellence, and they must provide all the neccessary resources, be it human, equipment, finance, or even time, to ensure success. Not only success but also to sustain the process. Within the TQM principles, oranization must design all their processes, execute all their processes (also related to value cahin and supply chain) that will result in quality products and services to the customers and end users. I believe that quality must start from you, the employee, and mind you the CEO is also 'an employee'. Think about it. Deming once said 'Survival is not compulsory'