“2010 Academic Year Total Quality Management Seminar” was held at March 26 at two venues in the TKU Tamsui campus, the Ching-sheng International Conference Hall and the Chueh-sheng International Conference Hall. Members of the TKU Lanyang campus also joined the seminar via teleconference. The main theme of the seminar is “sharpening quality management skills in quality control circle and enhancing cross-unit cooperation.” President C. I. Chang said that the establishment of quality control circles is aimed to encourage cross-unit cooperation to improve quality management of the university. The cross-unit cooperation is vital to the development of the TKU, she said.

During the seminar, President Chang awarded top three winners of the quality circle contest. The top three winners are “Cultural Revolution Circle” organized by the office of secretariat and the documents section under the Office of General Affairs; “Infinite Loop” of the TKU Library; and “Black-eye Phoenix Circle” of the Division of Continuing Education.

Head of the first-prize winner Lin Su-yueh, who doubled as chief of the documents section said that the forming of her circle is meant to help speed up the efficiency of managing, processing and filing official documents and files of the school. Lin said that her circle has come up with many concrete plans to facilitate these processes that used to take very long time. Since the circle is joined by members of different units of the school, Lin said that they could only make use of winter vacation and non-office hours to hold meetings.“Some members even focus too much on the circle and forget to get her children from the school,” she said. Lin expressed gratitude to all members of the “Cultural Revolution Circle” and to those who gave help to the circle during the contest.

Following the award-giving ceremony, Ou Shiang-ferng, Nursing Supervisor of the Taichung Veterans General Hospital, gave a speech to share her experience in quality control of her hospital. Topics she spoke include emergency-critical medical care, quality teaching and research on medication, and pushing for organization structure upgrade. Members of the hospital’s “Kangaroo Circle” also share their experience in quality management by using an case on cervical Pap Smear Test. She noted that the circle is chiefly run by the doctors, which can help to solve the core issues. Team work and the encouragement from the superior are also very important in running the circle.

During the Q&A session, Dean of Office of Student Affairs Dr. Ko Chih-en asked a question on the “Kangaroo Circle.” She asked members of the circle on if they are in exhaustion both physically and mentally during the quality control process. One of the members of the circle, nurse Lin Hsien-ai said that she and her colleagues did suffer a great exhaustion during the whole process but it worth all the efforts. Another question asked by He Cheng-hsing, a staff in TKU Lanyang Campus, was made to the members of the circle. He asked these members what kind of obstacles did they face during the promotion of quality control circle, especially how to convince doctors to join the project. Ou said that her section chief have gave their strong support during the promotion and therefore, boost their confidence. Dr. Kan-nan Chen, TKU Vice President for Academic Affairs, continued to ask on how they managed to continue to run the quality control circle. Ou said they started under the motivation of interest. However, during the half way of the project, they began to include joining the project as a part of annual evaluation which forces everyone to join the circle to make it a sustainable project. “And of course, the support from a senior supervisor is also important to keep the project alive,” said Ou. ( ~Yeh Yun-kai )