“2008 Academic Year TQM Conference” was held on May 1 at Chuehsheng International Conference Hall and Chingsheng International Conference Hall, and the event took place concurrently in Langyang campus via video conference. The seminar featured on “Setting QCC, Substantiating TQM,” in which the keynote speaker Mr. Wang Pai-jung, Vice Manager of TOYOTA, suggested the school to improve students, staff and faculty’s problem-finding ability to enhance quality control. Dr. Flora C.I. Chang, President of TKU, expressed in the opening ceremony that there is some distance between TKU’s “Quality Control Circle” (QCC) and enterprises’. “We still need to improve ourselves,” said President Chang. She asked every unit of TKU to make a plan to execute QCC thoroughly after the conference.

In the keynote speech, Mr. Wang Pai-jung talked about how they introduced the concept of QCC into their company and the problems they faced by analyzing some actual cases. “The most painful thing in the meeting is that no one would like to point out problems. Sometimes even though they know the problem, people prefer to keep silent because they have some other considerations,” Mr. Wang said. He explained that the ways to implement QCC in his company are inviting basic-level employees to popularize the idea of QCC, boosting workers’ morale, creating an optimistic and energetic working environment, and cultivating basic-level employees’ problem solving ability and leading ability. To give a more concrete example, Mr. Wang illustrated how the Engine Division, 2nd Manufacturing Department, made use of QCC to solve the oil-permeating problem at the lower cover of the engine.

Moreover, Dr. Bair Dyi-ching, Section Chief, the Educational Evaluation Section, Center for Learning and Teaching, gave a speech entitled “Introduction to PDCA Process and Seven Basic Quality Control Tools” to review how TKU implements TQM for the past 16 years. “QCC is the process of a team working together to find out problems and its solution,” Dr. Pai explained. With his introduction of the seven basic quality control tools including Check Sheets, Cause & Effect/Fishbone Diagram, Pareto Charts, Histogram, Scatter Diagram, Stratification, and Control Chart, Dr. Pai hoped that all the staff and faculty can apply these tools to examine the quality and effect of their work.

In the “Q and A” section, hosted by Dr. Chen Kan-nan, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dr. Kao Pao-yung, Vice President for Administrative Affairs, Dr. Wang Chu-Ching, the CEO of EMBA, proposed the question that whether problem-solving ability is more important than problem-finding ability. In Mr. Wang Pai-jung’s opinion, though the problem-solving ability is important, it can be passed down and learned from experience. However, he found that employees often lack of the ability to find problems, and that is why people need to put more focus on it. Dr. Lin In-ho, Chair, Dept. of Software Engineering, also asked, “What is the enterprises’ view on educational goal?” Mr. Wang Pai-jung replied, “I think it lies in cultivating students’ earnest working attitude and spirit.” ( ~Shu-chun Yen )