A symposium dedicated to the concept and implementation of TQM (Total Quality Management) was held on 3/26 at TKU. At the opening, Dr. Flora Chang, the president of TKU thanked the two judges on the evaluation committee for the National Quality Award (NQA), Lu Ruei-yen, the CEO of Golden Technology Venture Capital Investment Corporation, and Lin Wen-Tsann, the Dean of the College of Management, National Chin-yi University of Technology, for their sharp observation and unreserved criticism during the second round of the evaluation. With their suggestions, Dr. Flora Chang continued, TKU could identify issues and seek solutions promptly. NQA is an award that was primarily designed to evaluate the TQM implemented in business organizations. The aim of the symposium was firstly to propagate the philosophy of TQM and NQA, and secondly to discuss as well as sharing experiences of implementation. The other topic that was also addressed at the meeting was the optimization of Internet presence, which, apparently, can benefit greatly from TQM.

For a better understanding of TQM and its impact on TKU, Lu Ruei-yen gave a talk on the nature and core values of TQM and NQA, whereas Lin Wen-Tsann spoke about the measures TKU could take in the future for even better implementation of this concept. Lu gave detailed introduction to the three main paradigms (total, quality, and management) and 10 process steps that form the core of TQM. He further pointed out that this philosophy and the award take customer-driven quality very seriously and they believe every organization should learn to think many steps if not one step ahead their customers’ needs. He also expressed his admiration for TKU’s keen participation in NQA by praising the university’s serious efforts in meeting the high standard of the award. “TKU is the most dedicated university that sticks to TQM,” he said. Nonetheless, he cautiously stated that there is still some room for improvement should the university wants to reach a level that is comparable to some of the top business organizations cum NQA competitors that have impeccable implementation. One piece of advice he gave is not allowing any “weak links” in the management, which can only be overcome by a complete involvement from all staff and faculty members concerned

TKU may need to look up to some top business organizations, Lin Wen-Tsann nonetheless maintained that TKU is still the leader of the pack among universities in implementing TQM. What stopped TKU to reach the highest level is some inconsistencies in results despite having great planning processes. To improve that, echoing what Lu Ruei-yen said, is to make sure everyone involved in TQM is well informed and well-trained. Furthermore, there should be a task force, which overseen directly by the top management, in charge of building a knowledge management platform, to ensure a free exchange of knowledge and flow of information.

After their presentations, Keh Huan-chao, the Dean of the Academic Affairs of TKU, the former winner of Tamkang Quality Award, shared his experience of successful realization of TQM in his division. Active and total involvement of all staff is one factor to the success, while the other factor being the rapid, efficient, and well-documented response to the questions and criticisms the NQA evaluation committee threw at them. Lu and Lin added soon after that such responses show TKU has truly incorporated the spirit of TQM.

The afternoon program of the meeting was mainly devoted to Internet visibility. Dr. Isidro F. Aguillo, the Executive Manager of Center for Scientific Information and Documentation based in Spain explained their operation with part of it being measuring and ranking universities around the world in terms of their Web exposure. He went through some of the criteria his organization uses to rank universities worldwide as well as regionally, during which he stressed repeatedly the benefits of a heightened Internet visibility. One of them is of course to promote the reputation of the university. And it’s shame, he added, famous and established universities tend to ignore this valuable asset.

Following his speech, Hwang Ming-dar, the Director of Information Processing Center, explained the data on the use of Internet and outside campus. With these data, he and his colleagues can find effective ways of optimizing Internet traffic. ( ~Ying-hsueh Hu )