by Ye Zaiqi, Wu Xiaoling
SEATTLE, April 30 (Xinhua) -- The first China-U.S. Quality Summit, which opened Monday here, is a perfect occasion for Chinese and American business leaders and professionals in the quality community to come together to share their knowledge and ideas about innovation in the digital era, a U.S. expert said on Monday.
"This is a historic event. This has never been done before to have a quality summit between our Chinese friends in the U.S. It's a remarkable achievement that we came together to make it happen," said William Troy, chief executive officer (CEO) of American Society for Quality (ASQ), in an interview with Xinhua.
As part of the Global Summit on Quality, formally known as the 2018 ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement hosted by the ASQ, the China-U.S. Summit was held as a platform for the exchange of information between senior U.S. and Chinese executives, government officials and quality experts.
The event attracted about 20 CEOs and top business leaders from major Chinese companies such as Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company Limited, Haier Group Corporation, and XiamenAir, and 50 entrepreneurs from about 30 U.S. companies, including Boeing Co., Google, IBM and Microsoft.
"Everybody on the agenda today shows that what you will hear is that there's a lot of expertise. It really doesn't matter what location you live in the world. There's a lot of expertise on the subject of quality," he said.
"And what we're attempting to do with this summit is to bring that expertise together so that we can share and we can learn from other parts of the world here in the U.S., and China can definitely learn from what we're doing here in the U.S. as well. It's a great opportunity for everybody involved," Troy said.
The China-U.S. Summit was held in concurrence with the ASQ-hosted Global Summit on Quality slated for Monday through Wednesday in Seattle, the largest city in the U.S. western state of Washington.
CHINESE REPRESENTATIVE SPEAKS FIRST
The ASQ conference witnessed the first Chinese keynote speaker who addressed the opening ceremony of the three-day annual event, something that has never happened in the history of the ASQ in the past decades.
Huang Guoliang, chief of the Chinese delegation consisting of 60 government officials, entrepreneurs and professionals from eight Chinese provinces and municipalities, said in his keynote speech that data quality was the key to quality innovation in the digital era.
"With the rapid advancement of science and technology, countries are interdependent and have a high degree of integration of interests, and therefore it is no longer necessary for each component to be developed and manufactured by a single country itself," he said.
Echoing Huang's perspectives, Troy said the Chinese delegation chief "did a marvelous address" and "talked about how there's a hunger in every human for quality, no matter it's small things, data things, or the higher things that we all aspire to."
"It's the importance of quality to give people a better life. It is ultimately what it is ... It's much more than just about more efficient process, it's about how to give people a better life and how to make our work better, safer and more sustainable," Troy said.
"We want to advance that conversation at this summit. We've got some of the top people in both the U.S. and in China who work in quality and we're going to exchange ideas about how to enhance quality and help all of us share in the benefits of quality," said the ASQ CEO.
Talking about why China was chosen by the ASQ as its first foreign keynote speaker, Troy said: "When we started to talk about having a summit, we decided that this is a summit to talk about quality at a very high level, a strategic level."
"It seemed like a good opportunity for us to invite a senior official who works on quality at a high level to address our conference, and to set the tone for a very high-level impact for discussion," he said.
He noted that the conference has got a number of presenters from China and the United States and "each one is able to give their insights and we'll have a discussion about what we've learned from each other."
"China has a lot to offer, there is a lot of experts, and there's a great focus on quality. That's why we have business. ASQ is in the business of quality, so we want to draw from that, whether that expertise exist anywhere in the world, and we know that's a great focus in China," he said.
"That's the reason why you will see more and more involvement of China and Chinese citizens in the ASQ functions," Troy said.
He recalled that he has been to China twice to attend quality conference, and felt that "the commitment of China to quality is very impressive."
"And I saw it (the commitment) at the very senior level and all the way down the organization that there's a great committee to building quality," he said.
CONFERENCE EXPANDS BENEFIT TO BOTH U.S., CHINA
When asked whether the current trade frictions would affect the cooperation on quality between China and the United States, he said, "I think that there's so much benefit to both countries. To have this conversation about quality is going to expand that benefit."
"It's true that we are having some areas of disagreement and there is a competitive space. But in my opinion the space for cooperation is much bigger than the competitive space. If we focus on that and on the future, we can really help both our countries if it advances and then it helps our people. That's the ultimate goal of quality," he said.
"It is to make a better life more sustainable, a process that will help all of us, and it's to the world's benefit," he noted.
He said the Chinese presenter has made a very good point about the importance of using big data, which I think will be the future of quality.
"If you use artificial intelligence and big data to inform our decisions about quality, I think it will be very important and that's going to be in the future so that we're able to make better decisions, and we can reduce the impact on the environment, and can help people achieve quality in their lives," said the ASQ CEO.
Noting quality and innovation require commitment at the very top, Troy said, "so I think our most successful companies are their CEOs, their board, the chairman of their board, they all believe in quality, and then that attitude permeates the organization."
"It's not just one department that is talking about quality, it's the whole enterprise that cares about quality," which ultimately leads them to the summit of success, he added.
The conference on quality is the largest and most influential global meeting on quality, which attracts about 2,000 to 3,000 participants from more than 50 countries and regions each year since its inception in 1947.
