Impressions of Southeast Asia's Quality System
By Joseph Nebus, Quality Director • Edited by Brian Brolin
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| Downtown Bangkok driven by ISO |
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After a 22-hour flight, my wife and I finally arrived in Thailand. The first sight out of the airport was the taxi service that was to take us to the Siam City Hotel. To my surprise, I discovered that I was about to ride in the first ISO 9002 certified taxi. The driver explained with great pride that all of the finer taxi services throughout Bangkok are ISO registered. On the way to the hotel, I noticed ISO 9000 signs on display for many other businesses.
Impressions of Thailand
We spent four days in Bangkok, Phang Nga, and the ports of Ko Samet and Phuket. Every manufacturing facility we toured was registered to ISO 9001 -- many already upgraded to ISO 9001:2000. The most significant visit was to the Thai Ministry of Science, Technology, and the Environment's division of Science Services (which provides some services roughly equivalent to the Inorganic division of "NIST"). They are accredited to ISO/IEC 17025, with a goal of aiding all quality laboratories to be similarly accredited. Clearly, there is a comprehensive quality system in place, implementing both ISO 9001:2000 and ISO/IEC 17025 throughout the nation.
Impressions of Malaysia
The business sector of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia specializes in petrochemical, financial, and the manufacturing industries. Again, the high quality standards were apparent, from the gleaming stainless steel of the Petronas Twin Towers to the Intel mega-facilities surrounding the city. We toured several coconut, cashew, and rubber plantations. Each Agra-processing factory was quality registered. More significantly, the raws are now being processed into final products before leaving the country. Another eye-opener was the fact that factory wages are fairly comparable to our own. The husband and wife both work to have a nice mid-size car, plus a modern apartment or home.
Every facility we visited would easily pass any OSHA or EPA audit. Working conditions were neat, orderly, and clean. Productivity and quality are highly emphasized as value-added features of conducting business in Malaysia. The people we conferred with often had a stereotypical image of our products as lacking because we are just not as far along in ISO acceptance.
Impressions of Singapore
The containerized shipping industry of Singapore thrives on the quality standards. Banking and a newly emerging life-insurance industry are largely concerned with quality principles and procedures. Even the shopping malls and movie theaters are ISO 9002 registered and proudly display that fact in their advertising. We visited the National University of Singapore, and they too are firmly committed to the Quality principles. At the moment, they are in the process of re-casting every department with an emphasis on integrating a strong computational aspect into each of the sciences and collaborating to share their insights. This was perhaps the strongest example of the principles of strategic planning and teamwork I had witnessed.
The Singapore Productivity and Standards Board is leading the way as the ISO champion. The Singapore Quality Mark is firmly in place. Quality Circles are actively embraced with more than 12% of the workforce participating. As a result, productivity in factories has dramatically increased (17.6% in 1999 and 11.6% in 2000). People and businesses are prospering like never before.
Author's Note
I want to emphasize that this report is based on a very limited number of observations, conversations, and personal impressions over the course of several weeks. Still, there seems to be a clear distinction between Southeast Asia and the United States in how our cultures value ISO quality imperatives. 
An Inorganic Ventures Publication - January 2002
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