Education about quality infrastructures

The ICES Conference 2012 was held 10-11 May 2012 in Bali, Indonesia. See the post below.

A reflection after my return home is that it should be much more interesting to include metrology, conformity assessment and accreditation into a International Cooperation on Education about SMCA, i.e. Quality Infrastructures.

ICES Conference 2012

The International Cooperation on Education about Standardization (ICES)  was founded in Tokyo, February 6-8, 2006 at a meeting on ‘The Future of Global Education in Standards' hosted by CSK(a Japanese IT-service company), ITSCJ (Information Technology Standards Commission Japan) and Sun Microsystems.

ICES has held workshops each year after the first meeting
2007 Delft, The Netherlands
2008 Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA
2009 Tokyo, Japan
2010 Geneva, Switzerland
2011 Hangzhou, China
2012 Bali, Indonesia
ICES is a network of individuals and organizations interested in education about standardization. ICES aims to promote education about standardization and improve its quality and attractiveness for all stakeholders.

From 2010 ICES workshops has been organized in conjunction with the annual World
Standards Cooperation (WSC) Academic Day.

ICES Conference 2012 aimed at promoting the quality and attractiveness of education
 about standardization by sharing good practices. The WSC Academic Day 2012 was conceived by ISO, IEC and ITU to promote dialogue between universities and the international standards community, to raise awareness and to foster cooperation and joint initiatives.

In conjunction with the ICES Conference and the WSC Academic Day, ISO was organizing an event 7-9 May aiming at supporting developing countries in defining programmes targeting universities and at developing strengthening courses on education about standardization in their countries.

Learning about standardisation as an adult

My submission of a paper on experiences from training of participants in standardisation was accepted by the conference organizers (Henk de Vries, Vice-Chair of ICES, Tisyo Haryono, Head of Center for Education and Promotion of Standardization, BSN). This paper became a summary of a life-long career in human communication from my studies at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg to my present occupation as consultant and trainer on standardisation and market access. In addition to the 8-page paper six slides were prepared for the oral presentation at the conference.

Learning about standardisation as an adult from Folke Hermansson Snickars

Training on participation in international standardisation

As part of the EU-China Trade Project II a 5-day training course for Chinese experts was arranged in October 2011 by EUCTP, SAC and CNIS. The training was conducted by the two European instructors Folke Hermansson Snickars (Sweden) and Javier Garcia Diaz (Spain), and consisted of lectures, group work, role plays, and also a study visit at the meeting of ISO Technical Committee 176 Quality management which was convened in Beijing during the same week.

German merger of GTZ, DED and InWent

Germany’s Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, or GIZ, which began work Jan. 1, is the merger of three development agencies: the German Technical Cooperation, or GTZ, German Development Service, or DED, and Inwent. GIZ is the result of one of the most sweeping, and swift, reforms seen in German development cooperation in recent years.

GIZ is placed under the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, or BMZ, giving the federal government complete control over German development aid operations once again. The creation of GIZ is likely to make German aid more efficient, but, as some critics note, not necessarily more effective.

Source: Global Development Briefing, Devex, 7 January 2011

New Directorate-General for Development and Cooperation – EuropeAid, or DG DEVCO,

The European Commission merged DG EuropeAid and DG Development following an announcement in October 2010. The goal of the merger, according to the commission, is to create a single voice for the EU on development and cooperation. Fokion Fotiadis will head the directorate. Its new structure is expected to be fully in place by April 2011.
"DG DEVCO will reinforce the ability of the EU to design state-of-the-art development policy for all developing countries, and enhance policy coherence for development while further improving implementation and delivery mechanisms. It will also define the future development policy drawing from the objectives of the EU’s Green Paper on development policy and contribute to global challenges ahead."
Source: Global development briefing, Devex, 7 January 2011

Feasibility study on a Regional Training Programme for CROSQ

Being back in the Caribbean paradise I this time was challenged this time to find out the need for training in the CROSQ Member States. This project was funded by the EU TradeCom Facility which had contracted the German consultancy firm BKP Development with me as Key expert. Even if it was not formally described as a follow-up of the Pro€Invest-project for CROSQ, carried out last year, it practically came to be an implementation of two actions with high priority (Institutional capacity building and Mutual awareness building). The need assessment was based on a shallow questionnaire and deepening interviews during visits to the Member States. During two missions, 12 of 14 CROSQ Member States were visited. During the second mission I was accompanied by Håkan Källgren, Swedish Metrology and Quality, as an expert in metrology and conformity assessment. All National Standards Bodies were visited, and most visits also contained meetings with Business Support Organizations.

In St Kitts and Nevis there was also arranged meetings with enterprises (St Kitts Botteling Company, Sun Island Clothing Ltd).










The analysis of the need assessment resulted in a proposed Regional Training Programme and an Implementation plan for the programme. This proposal was validated by two participants from each Member State in a validation workshop in Barbados on the 6 December 2010.

2010 Report on Technical Barriers to Trade

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is responsible for the 2010 Report on Technical Barriers to Trade. The TBT Report is a new, specialized report focused on significant foreign trade barriers in the form of product standards, technical regulations and testing, certification, and other procedures involved in determining whether products conform to standards and technical regulations (conformity assessment procedures). These standards-related trade measures, known in World Trade Organization (WTO) parlance as “technical barriers to trade,” play an increasingly critical role in shaping the flow of global trade. Usually you learn more of an "outsider's" picture than to paint the picture yourself.

Mauritius Standards Bureau

Mauritius as a Member State of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is benefiting from participation in the EU SADC SQAM-project. The SQAM-project is among other activities offering training in all sectors of the Quality Infrastructure. In standardization the standards organizations are offered coaching by standards experts. MSB is receiving such coaching in March - April 2010 by Folke Hermansson Snickars from Sweden. The assignment is covering most part of the work done by the Standards Development Division, as a review of the MSB Standards Development Strategy, introduction of the project approach to standardization, proposals on a management system for the MSB supply of standards to Mauritius, and efficiency in preparation and conducting meetings. A special attention is also given to the Mauritius committtee on the WTO agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade of which MSB is acting as Secretariat.

CROSQ stakeholder dialogues

The CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) is preparing for a stronger Caribbean position in the global trade. By consulting its stakeholders, the National Standards Bodies and Business Support Organizations, CROSQ has done a needs assessment and prepared a 5-year CROSQ Action Plan 2011 - 2015 "Strengthening the Caribbean cooperation towards standards and quality". In two workshops CROSQ with the support (technical and financial) of Pro€Invest, initiated 2009 a capacity building technical assistance project to identify current and future institutional needs of CROSQ and its stakeholders. The output from the needs study has enabled CROSQ to develop a comprehensive Action plan for the years 2011-2015. As part of this project, key stakeholders to CROSQ were invited to take part in two workshops where needs were identified and actions to satisfy the needs were further developed. The format of the Stakeholder dialogues was tailored to encourage sharing of views and experience. As input to the dialogue, a preliminary needs analysis was presented to stimulate contributions from the participants. The outcome of the first workshop was a consensus view on the most urgent needs and their priority. These were grouped in the following five categories in priority order

* Institutional capacity building
* Review of the legal framework
* Mutual awareness building
* Sustainable management and Networking
* Adaptation to Innovation and Technology


The second workshop Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 February 2010 agreed on the actions which need to be taken to strengthen CROSQ and its members. A consolidated Action plan was presented and agreed as an outcome of the workshop.

Seychelles Bureau of Standards

Seychelles re-entered the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 2008 and the national standards organization SBS was from 2009 benefiting from participation in the EU SADC SQAM-project. The SQAM-project is among other activities offering training in all sectors of the Quality Infrastructure. In standardization the standards organizations are offered coaching by standards experts. SBS was receiving such coaching in January 2010 by Folke Hermansson Snickars from Sweden. The first mission was reviewed by SBS management Friday 22 January.

Caribbean regional quality infrastructure

The Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands(most of which enclose the sea), and the surrounding coasts. In 1973, the first political regionalism was created by advances of the English-speaking Caribbean nations through the institution known as the Caribbean Common Market and Community (CARICOM).The CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) was established in February 2002. Its primary objective is the establishment and harmonisation of standards to enhance the efficiency and improve quality in the production of goods and services in the Community, to protect the consumer and the environment and to improve trade within the Community and with third states.
CROSQ is supported by several donors, such as IDB, CDB and the EU-ACP through the EDF. To further assist CROSQ in its development, EU-ACP through its programme Pro€Invest is funding a Capacity Building Technicial Assitsance project to identify current and future institutional needs of CROSQ which will enable CROSQ to develop of an Action plan to be presented for financial support. A European consortium led by the Spanish ECA International, Entidad Colaboradora de la Administración,is providing a project team consisting of Folke Hermansson Snickars, as Team leader, and Dr Vera Poncano. The project started in October 2009 and will be completed in March 2010.

Albania applies for EU candidate status

Visiting Tirana in Albania for 3 days, I experienced the historic moment when this small and poor country applied for the EU candidate status on the 28th of April. As my reason for being in Tirana was related to the preparation for an EU accession, I was also pleased that the Stabilisation and accession agreement between Albania and the EU from 2006 now had entered into force by 1 April 2009. To work with the very dedicated staff of DPS, which already is an Affiliate of the European standards organizations CEN and CENELEC, was extremely rewarding.
Most of us usually have prejudgments about Tirana as a capital of a former communist dictatorship. Gray coulors, depressed faces, disorder, violence, crime, etc. Then go there! Today Tirana is giving an impression to be colourful, green, warm and nice. Not everywhere, but at least to give you a very optimistic feeling. This transformation within less than 10 years are mainly the work lead by the Mayor of Tirana, Edi Rama. When he, as an artist and rap artist, was elected the year 2000, 36 years old, he made a change. Long before Barak Obama. Put colour on the facades of the grey houses, planted trees, removed illegial contructions on municipal land, added street light and opened closed city areas for all people. Now you can walk freely on boulevards, sit down at outside cafés, or stroll in the green parks. To see a documentary on the Albanian Wonder Boy, look at You Tube

New Swedish aid delivery model

Sweden plans to pilot-test new aid delivery model with Indonesia as cooperation partner.
The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency is set to phase in what it calls partner-driven cooperation in Indonesia and six other countries that fall under the category of selective cooperation following the Swedish government's decision in 2007 to overhaul its development strategy.
The Swedish government wants to achieve a more focused development policy, and the first step it took was to nearly halve the number of countries with which it will cooperate. Sida will maintain bilateral cooperation with 33 of its 67 partner countries, and pilot the new strategy in seven. It will pull out from the rest.
Among the 33 countries I find most of those I have been working in:
- Albania
- Ethiopia
- Guatemala
- Kenya
- Moldavia
- Mozambique
- Uganda
International Development Articles - Devex Europe

Uganda Standards and Quality Infrastructure

Technical infrastructures to support sustainable development and trade in developing countries and countries in transition are focused in a paper published by the Joint Committee on Co-ordination of Assistance to Developing Countries in Metrology, Accreditation and Standardization (JCDCMAS). JCDCMAS is created by nine international organizations and is calling for a composite approach to development assistance for technical infrastructures. By this it is meant that a holistic consideration of a country's needs is required, and a plan of action be agreed. If this can be achieved by the developing country, then assistance efforts can be coordinated and synergies between the various parts of the tecchnical infrastructure established. Once established these synergies provide the technical infrastructure with its identity and strength, and enable it to contribute the country's sustainable development and trade potential.

This composite approach was applied in a Sida-funded project to assist Uganda's Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Industry (MTTI) in assessing the needs in Uganda, and based on these needs a programme proposal for development of an Uganda Standards and Quality Infrastructure (QUISP). The consultancy team consistency of Dr. Sam G Nahamya (former Permanent Secretary, MTTI), Dr. Eve Kasirye-Alemu (former Executive Direcctor, Uganda National Bureau of Standards) and myself as a Team Leader. Backstopping was aranged by the MTTI in an excellent manner, offering as project office the PS office and the secretariat services from Jacinta Atim. The team reported to the Assistant Trade Commisioner Cyprian Batala, and Deogratias Kamweya from MTTI and to a steering committee consisting of stakeholders from government agencies, private sector and donor organizations.

Moldovan Quality infrastructure

The Swedish King Charles XII, who stayed in the Ottoman territories 4 years between 1709 and 1713, lived off the largess of the Sultan and eventually overstayed his welcome. The Janissaries detailed to guard him were ordered to seize the Swedish King and only succeeded after a pitched fight of a handful of Swedes pitted against thousands of Janissaries reluctant to hurt the King - that tumult came to be called "The Kalabalik at Bender". An EU-team, representing Germany, Belgium, and Sweden arrived nearly 300 years later, to assess economical priority areas for approximation of the Moldovan Quality infrastructure with the European.

Ethiopian Quality infrastructure

Occupational safety seem not to be a big issue in Ethiopian construction industry.









The German "Building Ethiopia"-program will probably change that by Capacity Building.











Four days, including a weekend, was a first intervention to support the transforming of the standards part of QSAE to an Ethiopian National Standards Body in line with international principles.

Quality has followed my working life, first implicit, later more explicit when I came to work directly with Quality management and now with Quality infrastructures.

The year I decided to leave the Royal Library and the project on the LIBRIS Library Information System (http://www.libris.kb.se/english/indexeng.jsp), I received, as a personal gift from one of my colleagues, a book with the title Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig. The book became on my desk some time, before I opened it, and started to read it. I was not motivated for reading about neither Zen nor Motorcycles. Then I found a note inserted between two pages, from my colleague:
"We miss you in the project, ... I am not the only one in the library world, who feels sad about your departure from the project. I have tried to figure out what it is that is so sad. When I read about this book [Zen...] I found what it was: With you, Quality disappeared from the project!"
First I really felt ashamed, not having understood what the message was. After a while, and especially after reading the whole book, I became glad and proud. I hope I let my colleague Ingeborg know about my pride and satisfaction!

Having entered standardization already during the library project, Quality did not appear explicitly until the ISO 9000-drafts were presented in 1986. The SIS-support for organizations that wanted to implement the standards changed my working life, from Public Communication in general into Quality Management. During the early 90's it sometimes became a little bit too much. That may explain the advice I gave my son Tom, when he, in his work was asked to join a Quality development project. He wanted to prepare himself by reading some of the quality literature. He certainly knew the extensive space my books on Quality occupied in my bookshelf. From The Quality handbook, by Juran, to standard documents from the ISO 9000-series. I hesitated to recommend any book in which the word Quality were endlessly repeated, and were choosing two examples, which both dealt with the concept Quality, without using the term, i.e. books that were dealing with Quality, without mentioning it. The books were The Goal, by Eli Goldratt, and The World Champions [in Swedish], by Jan Helling. Both complied with my criterion; dealing with Quality without using the Quality terminology.

When moving from Quality management to International Development Co-operation around the year 2000, I found the concept Quality used in a new context: Quality infrastructure. In the beginning I had a lot of reservations to this use of the Quality-concept in such a context. Quality was usually defined as a characteristic of a delivered produce. Coming to "national infrastructures", I found it difficult to apply the existing Quality terminology. When I came to attend the planning activities within CEN of the EU-ASEAN Economic co-operation programme on Standards, Conformity Assessment and Quality, I felt a need for clarifying the Quality infrastructure-concept in a market perspective using the Process approach, that is mapping activities performed by using the verb form, instead of the usual Organizational approach, by using nouns for disciplines or institutions involved. That conceptual model is described in a recent article, published in ISO Focus, June 2007. To read the article, please visit my web site http://www.ambiprospect.com/ambi/en.

On my blog on Quality infrastructure, http://qualityinfrastructure.blogspot.com I will try to report on interesting developments in the area, an area which to my knowledge, is missing such a reviewing service. With a blog reader (web based RSS-reader) like Bloglines or Google Reader, you can easily get a notice of all new posts to this blog by subscribing to it by RSS- or Atom-feeds.

What does the term "quality infrasatructure" mean? In the past, the abbreviation MSTQ was used, standing for Metrology, Standardisation, Testing and Quality. When "accreditation" was introduced, the abbreviation SQAM was sometimes preferred, standing for Standardisation, Quality assurance, Accreditation and Metrology. The International Trade Center (created by UNCTAD and WTO) states in a report A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO THE QUALITY ASSURANCE CHALLENGE from 2001:
"As accreditation must now be built into the quality infrastructure, there has been a shift from an emphasis on MSTQ (metrology or measurement traceability, standards, testing and
quality assurance) to SQAM (standards, quality assurance, accreditation and
metrology)."

Probably it was thought that "testing" was part of "quality assurance". Den numera vanligaste termen har kommit att bli Quality Infrastructure, som omfattar Standards, Metrology, Testing, Certification, Accreditation. See e.g. brochure from PTB in Germany.

A most comprehensive list of references to the concept "Quality Infrastructure" is contained in the service from Karsten Weitzenegger Consulting.

ExportSource.ca - Let's Get Technical: An Exporter's Guide to Technical Standards

Article about standard from a Canadian export service

I moved the Global Trade web site half year ago. Now you can find some development of the content there. Have a look and give your comments on the start side of Ambi Prospect