Continuously Refine the Quality Management System to Build a Reliable Team

─ Michael Hsu, Quality Manager, Quality Management Dept., CTCI Corp., Group Engineering Business 

Following the globalization trend, enterprises are facing fierce international competition and an ever-changing market mechanism. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in recent years has led to a disrupted and more complex global supply chain. In the face of severe challenges, CTCI, adhering to the vision of "The Most Reliable Global Engineering Services Provider," has continued to enhance and adopt innovative management strategies, systematically improved the management mechanism, and reinforced the organization's resilience and flexibility, thereby laying a solid foundation for sustainable development. We will share in this article the progress made by the Quality Management Dept., CTCI, in the four aspects of listening to the voice of the customers, reinforcing the intellectual property protection and control mechanism, improving the quality of civil engineering, and increasing the awareness of engineering quality, to achieve the goal of continuous improvement.

Listen to the Voice of the Customers for Continuous Improvements

Listening to the voice of the customers is one of the major approaches to CTCI's progress. To increase customer satisfaction, the Quality Management Dept., CTCI, keeps abreast of external and internal customers' opinions, collects all parties' suggestions, and continues to enhance our product and service quality, while improving the internal procedures. Top Management chairs inter-departmental meetings to engage in thorough discussions and communication about customers' suggestions for improvement, while considering the feasibility of project execution, confirming the directions of adjustment and improvement countermeasures, and then including them in the internal standardized operating procedures (SOP).

Since 2017, CTCI has regularly held a seminar of "Semiannual Regulations/Procedure Updates Promotion and Project Execution Feedback." The main purposes are:
1.Ensure the heads of departments and project members understand the reasons, key points, execution methods, and expected results of the regulations/procedure revisions.
2.Improve the completeness of regulations/procedure through project feedback and opinions shared and discussed in the briefing sessions.

Furthermore, in response to the increasing number of projects executed by CTCI but also participated by the group's subsidiaries, we have expanded the participation in the seminar since 2022 by including employees at such subsidiaries related to the projects to facilitate communication. They participate in the seminars online to stay informed of the latest management mechanism and priorities of project execution so that they can execute the projects accordingly.

Strengthen Intellectual Property Protection to Develop the Correct Awareness

With the increasingly fierce competition in the global market, major international enterprises are putting more emphasis on the management of intellectual property (IP). The protection and management of IP has become the key to enterprises' core competitiveness. CTCI has been constantly improving intellectual property management. The specific actions we have taken in recent years include intellectual property leakage prevention, enhanced construction site IP management and control, SOP formulation/revisions, group-wide IP knowledge evaluation, and seminars. We have conducted IP management thoroughly either in daily work or at project construction sites and developed employees' correct concepts and knowledge through speeches and evaluations.

Improve the Engineering Quality to Reinforce Risk Prevention

While improving the engineering quality, CTCI takes the initiative to safeguard the rights for project owners in alignment with our brand spirit of "Most Reliable." To effectively prevent the common malpractices in the domestic civil engineering projects from occurring, such as falsification of inspection (test) records, falsification of material quantity, and cutting corners, thereby impacting the project quality, affecting the project schedule and costs, and defaming the company's reputation, CTCI has put forth improvement strategies for civil engineering bulk materials of concealed works, laboratory entrustment, and concrete test samples management: self-supply of civil engineering bulk materials, entrusted laboratory to perform tests, and RFID chips implantation to concrete test samples, to prevent and eradicate relevant issues, with a view to increasing owners' trust, enhancing management efficiency, and reducing CTCI and owners' costs of manpower and time in the sample testing stage.

Increase Quality Awareness to Strive for Awards and Honors

Public constructions are one of CTCI's main business in Taiwan, and the government inspects the quality of public constructions at the highest standards. To demonstrate our self-expectations of engineering quality and enhance customer trust, CTCI aims to win public works awards by formulating competition strategies and action plans, to continue to increase the group-wide employees' awareness of improving engineering quality by participating in competitions and implement relevant management measures in daily operations.

Conclusion

CTCI continues to improve and enhance the quality management system through the above quality improvement actions and management mechanisms, to not only provide satisfactory quality to customers but satisfy the Company's need for sustainable development. In the long run, we will strive to realize our values, develop a quality culture, and increase the group-wide quality awareness, knowledge, management, and actions through appropriate quality management. When the quality culture is deeply rooted in the organization, the concept of “Quality by Habit” will be incorporated into the organization's DNA as one of our competitive advantages, thereby consolidating our position as “No. 1 in Taiwan and one of the Top 100 international EPC companies in the world” and continue to provide the most reliable engineering services to owners around the world.