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    The first day events of the 6th  National Quality Conference, organized by SASO, was launched on Tuesday morning in the city of Dammam, held under the patronage of the Minister of Commerce and Investment, Chairman of SASO's Board of Directors, Dr. Majid bin Abdullah Al-Qasabi, under the slogan "Quality...the Path Toward Excellence and Leadership," with six workshops discussed the experiences of the countries participated in the conference in the field of quality, measurement and innovation, and also discussed the vision of the Kingdom 2030,  as well as the role of youth in the field of innovation, quality and institutional excellence. 

   In the workshop "Kaizen it and Saudi Vision 2030",  Eng. Saleh Al-Sulami, the founder and the leader of E-commerce (the digital transformation) at Abdul Latif Jameel Company, has stressed on Kaizen methodology as one of the major programs that can be a distinguished scientific contribution to achieve the future vision of quality in the Kingdom, which seeks to ensure that the kingdom with its services and products becomes a global standard for quality and excellence.

     Prof. Wan Seon Shin, Professor of Systems Management Engineering at SungKyunKwan University, President of the Korean Society for Public enterprises, and Former President of Korean Society for Quality Management (KSQM), has reviewed South Korea's outstanding experience in quality and highlighted the key success factors and strategies adopted by Korea to achieve excellence and quality . In addition, he explained the importance of quality in the Korean experience in the field of quality and how business owners and managers of the largest companies such as Samsung, Hyundai and LG, have contributed in the application of quality.

    However, Mr. Mike Turner's workshop, "Quality Professionals & Accelerating change ," highlighted the role of Quality Professionals in assisting organizations to achieve their goals and to make faster change, and how that role of quality professionals can make the change. A short group training was held, at the end of the workshop, to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the culture of those interested in quality and development, as well as to exchange good ideas to address these issues.

     The workshop "Measuring and benchmarking innovation management capabilities " by Dr. Eva Diedrichs , presented an overview of (A.T. Kearney House-of-Innovation framework) that has proven its value in thousands of assessments globally. The workshop focused on two key dimensions of innovation management: innovation strategies and innovation processes. Key success factors in these dimensions were highlighted, and the leading practice models were mentioned.

    During his workshop entitled "The institutional excellence and the Saudi vision 2030", Dr. Mustafa Alem reviewed a number of topics including the institutional excellence as a strategic requirement for the national development, institutional excellence and its relation to Vision 2030, and the map to implement the institutional excellence in public and private organizations consistent with the Saudi vision 2030.

     Furthermore, in the workshop entitled "Benchmarking for Best Practices & Organizational Excellence", Dr. Robin Mann emphasized that Benchmarking is much more than performance comparison! Benchmarking is the most powerful method for breakthrough thinking, innovation and for delivering exceptional bottom-line results.

     Prof. Wan Seon Shin, Former President of Korean Society for Quality Management (KSQM), during "Korea’s Best Practices for Quality Improvement" workshop, said that "The beginning of Korea's quality experience as one of the pioneers of success over the last 20 years, where Korea has moved from a low level in quality to a remarkable level made South Korea the sixth exporter of industrial products, and the budget of Samsung company has become equal to the budget of 14 Arab countries combined.

   He added: Korea has benefited from the developed American quality experience and transferred to the Korean language for the benefit of the largest number of Korean bodies, companies and authorities. He pointed out that the division of branches of quality into six colors by sectors, facilitated the benefit of companies and authorities to make achievements with the legislative and regulatory support of the state, which established the quality indicator. Therefore, the quality indicator had a major role in encouraging companies to take advantage of all the potentials to achieve advanced levels of industrial quality. Korean companies have been spending very large amounts on quality and racing to get advanced levels.

   Moreover, Dr. Eva Diedrichs also spoke at the workshop entitled "Measuring and benchmarking innovation management capabilities," pointing to the Saudi experience in adopting the best methods of quality standards.