Pakistan's 12th International Convention on quality improvement and 2nd Regional Conference on Asian Network for Quality (ANQ) was held recently in Lahore, Pakistan. The theme of this convention was "Managing Quality, Competitiveness and Performance in the current global recession and the socio economic situation".

Mr Thilak Pushpakumara

This is one of the premium annual events on quality that attracted top class professionals, researchers and academicians from Pakistan and other countries, who provided the latest information, knowledge, practices and researches. Critical Analysis, Creative and Practical ideas, breakthrough methodologies and sharing of best practices by successful companies provided a collective vision to all delegates present at the forum.

Sri Lanka was represented by Mr Thilak Pushpakumara, CEO, Institute of Lean Management Pvt Ltd whose presentation titled "Managing Quality by Managing Equipment" received extensive recognition. It was a unique approach and highly accepted by quality professionals as it was based on addressing the gap of today`s quality assurance system.

The conclusion of his technical paper, Under the basic philosophy of "Maintain perfect equipment in order to maintain perfect quality" quality assurance activities and equipment management activities should be coupled and the correlation between quality characteristics and equipment precision, is pursued to set conditions for equipment that does not generate defects to prevent defects caused by equipment and processing conditions.

Challenging zero defects has become a norm of today's manufacturing business. Quality Assurance systems control defects and make sure quality goods are released to the market at a cost. But most of the time it fails and results in customer complaints and claims. Maintaining 3M conditions is important in challenging zero defects. But understanding the relationship between equipment and quality, elimination of forced deterioration and of enhancement the proficiency of operators in equipment operation and maintenance will support the journey towards zero defect.