Team Excellence initiative saves RM8.1 mln

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KUCHING: The Team Excellence Convention for Sarawak and Sabah region which drew participation from 23 public and private sector organisations has resulted in a collective saving of RM8.1 million.

The Team Excellence initiative, organised by Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC), provided a platform for organisations to introduce creative ideas and innovation, improve efficiency and effective work processes, reduce cost and wastage, save time and enhance quality of products and services.

Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Chua Tee Yong pointed out that this annual event was meant to encourage organisations to enhance productivity through innovation and creativity.

“This convention is held across Malaysia in five regions, namely, Kota Bharu, Langkawi, Johor Bahru, Selangor and Kuching. Overall, there were 300 participants involved who produced a collective saving of RM286 million,” he told a press conference after officiating at the convention’s closing ceremony at a hotel here.

“We can see an increasing trend for participation and quality (of projects). In the past, participants were mainly from the private sector but in recent years, the public sector has shown a proactive front,” he said.

Chua thus encouraged the public sector to emulate the private sector in terms of work processes to provide an efficient and effective delivery system, remain competitive, and most importantly, increase customers’ satisfaction.

In order to achieve Malaysia’s aspiration to become an inclusive and developed nation in five years’ time, he emphasised that productivity and innovation were among the six important pillars of the 11th Malaysia Plan.

“The economic sector is shifting towards value-added and knowledge-intensive activities that are supported by enhanced innovation and productivity,” he said.

Chua stressed that productivity in Malaysia grew by 3.3 per cent last year while the 11th Malaysia Plan targets a 3.7 per cent per annum by 2020.

“Thus, in-depth understanding about productivity and quality aspects is very important for an organisation to optimise production or operations to achieve higher productivity,” he added.

Citing the World Competitiveness Yearbook 2016 by Institute for Management Development (IMD), Chua said that Malaysia continued to remain among the top 20 countries in the world in terms of productivity and competitiveness.

“This is our proud achievement. However, efforts and collaboration between the private and public sector are required to drive higher productivity,” he said.

“That being said, it is critical to ensure continuous enhancement of productivity, creativity and innovation as means to find solutions to problems and challenges faced by organisations in this dynamic and changing economy,” he added.

Earlier, MPC board member Datuk Abang Abdul Karim Tun Abang Openg pointed out that the corporation is currently focused on its ‘Unlocking The Potential of Productivity’ activities that would in turn spur Malaysia’s development productivity in order to accelerate the nation’s transformation agenda.

“MPC has been tasked to develop a Malaysia Productivity Blueprint which is expected to be launched by the Prime Minister soon. This Blueprint will focus on productivity enhancement of industries with potential to steer nation’s productivity,” he said.

Meanwhile, the convention here was drew participation from 238 people in 31 groups representing 23 organisations from both public and private sectors.

Abdul Karim hoped that the teams would be able to grow their potential and share their innovations at the International Exposition of Team Excellence (IETEX) in Singapore on Sept 26-28, International Quality and Productivity Convention (IQPC) in Indonesia on Nov 6-8 and Asia Pacific Quality Conference (APQC) in New Zealand on Nov 20-23.

Also present were MPC deputy director-general Datuk Abdul Latif Abu Seman, MPC Sarawak region director Tengku Azmi Tengku Majid and MPC Sabah region director Norzirin Ariffin.