Project News

From 25 May to 6 June, 2013, 10-member team of K-TOP counterparts went to Bangladesh to receive training on Kaizen/TQM (Total Quality Management) in the Public Sector in Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC), Dhaka, and Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) in Comilla, Bangladesh. This training was arranged by another JICA technical cooperation project, Improving Public Services through Total Quality Management (IPS-TQM) Project in Bangladesh (Web: http://ipstqm.net/), and BPATC is the counterpart and BARD is the partner institute to IPS-TQM Project.

The Sudanese participants are Kassala State Government officials from State Ministry of Finance, Directorate of Planning and Development, State Ministry of Agriculture, State Ministry of Health, State Water Corporation and Kassala Vocational Training Center. Through the training program, the Sudanese participants learned various Kaizen/TQM tools (Fishbone Diagram, Matrix Diagram, etc.) for improving public services and Bangladesh's system to disseminate Kaizen to all Upazilla (sub-district) offices in Bangladesh (around 12,000 offices) under the slogan "One Year One Project". They also visited Work Improvement Teams (WITs) who are implementing small-scale Kaizen action plans in Comilla, and learned the effects of Kaizen on the ground. The participants themselves practiced how to make their own Kaizen action plans, which can be implemented for three months with the existing manpower and budget. Kaizen, which means "bit-by-bit continuous improvement", is the key philosophy to motivate local government officials in Bangladesh to serve for the local population better with their own ideas and initiatives, and this philosophy was well conveyed to the Sudanese participants.

Completing two-week training and field visit in Bangladesh, the Sudanese participants expressed their satisfaction in this training, because they were able to understand Bangladesh government's effort to improve the public services through Kaizen/TQM, and they are willing to utilize what they learned in Bangladesh to improve the quality of the public services for the Sudanese people.

Through this training program, Bangladesh and Sudanese government officials have actively exchanged their experiences and opinions and learned each other. In the end of the training, both Bangladesh and Sudanese government officials agreed to continue this international network on Kaizen in the public sector, and promised to look for the opportunity for BPATC lecturers to visit Sudan to support Kaizen dissemination in Kassala, as well as for Sudanese government officials to come back to Bangladesh to attend and make presentation in the International Kaizen Convention scheduled in 16 November 2013.

Learning problem analysis using Fishbone Diagram from BPATC lecturer (29 May 2013)

Visiting National Martyr's Memorial (28 May 2013)

Observing mathematics class using local materials in a secondary school in Comilla (2 June 2013)

Visiting a maternal and child health clinic in Comilla (2 June 2013)

Interview with farmers who adopted HYV rice in Comilla (3 June 2013)

After finishing Training Report Session in JICA Bangladesh Office (5 June 2013)