The 36th National Quality Management Contest was held at COEX in Seoul on Nov. 23 with the attendance of 1,700 some odd government officials, businesspeople, workers and other guests.
The annual event, sponsored by the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and managed by the Korean Standards Association (KSA), is designed to spread quality management activities to all industries by presenting national quality awards to excellent companies and businesspeople that greatly contributed to improving the quality of goods and services, a KSA spokesman said.
At the 2010 national quality management contest, a total of 16 companies and organizations received national quality awards in recognition of their excellent quality management activities.
Five companies and organizations, including Woory Industrial, Korea Monitoring System and Sogang University, won a Quality Management Award.
Meanwhile, Gyeonggi Province received the Talent Development Award in recognition of its contribution to actively fostering talent in industrial fields, the spokesman said.
The Quality Management Propulsion Excellence Local Government Award, a newly established award for this year, created to boost the quality management activities of local governments, went to Busan Metropolitan City.
KEPCO NF won the Quality Competitiveness Excellence Award and 10 companies and institutions, including the Independence Hall of Korea, received the Service Quality Excellence Award.
Two companies, one of which was Kia Motors, garnered the Circle Excellence Company Award, which was newly established this year to boost quality group activities.
In recognition of their contribution to promoting quality management, Oh Se-young, CEO of SCOMMTECH, and Chang Do-soo, CEO of KOSEP, obtained the Gold Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit.
Oh carried out the quality innovative activities of 6 Sigma, contributing to building quality systems and improving corporate culture, and Chang pushed for the TPM movement for the first time among public companies, enhancing the efficiency of power generation. A total of 85 entrepreneurs received awards or citations.
Additionally, 21 workers, including Kim Bok-tae of LG Chemicals, took the Quality Master Hand Award and 246 sectors, including a division of Doosan Heavy Industries, garnered the Best Circle Award for their creative activities to improve business in the office, public and service fields, the spokesman said.
The Service Quality Master Hand Award went to five company officials, including Kim Moo-kyung of Kumho Resort, and the Excellence Suggestion Award was given to 10 workers, including Kim Hak-doo of Hyundai Motor.
Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik said as he delivered his address at the event, "I extend a great thanks to enterprises and workers that put forth their best efforts to provide consumers with high-quality products and services through quality innovation and the improvement of process. I hope quality management for customer value and happiness will become corporate culture and build an industrial foundation for sustainable low carbon and green growth," he added. "The best way to attain sustainable growth in an era of limitless competition is to bolster price competitiveness of Korean products and attain top-class quality. By doing so, we should provoke global consumers. To let Korea leap toward being a quality powerhouse, we should create global quality management and corporate culture for sustainable growth."
Meanwhile, the national quality management contest initiated in 1975 to present awards to enterprises and workers that made great contributions to the strengthening of industrial competitiveness by playing a leading role in industrial positions for the spread of quality management, improvement of productivity and cultivation of creative thinking.
In the course of propelling quality innovation, executives and employees joined hands, sought out labor-management harmony, and jacked up morale, greatly contributing to spreading quality management activities to all areas in the country, mentioned the spokesman.
Through the national quality management contests, 472 excellent companies, 4,169 excellence circles, 1,296 master hands and 1,713 contributors have received awards thus far, added KSA.
"Stock prices of the companies that received the national quality awards soared at a faster pace than the other companies, showing improvement of their financial status and global competitiveness," he added "As the global market demands a higher level of products and service quality in keeping with customers' diversified and top-notch desire, only companies which survive in stiff competition of quality can survive in the 21st century".
