Speech by Mr K H Lau, Director of Information Technology Services at the ISO 9001 Certificate Award Ceremony for the ITSD on 10 - 2 - 1999

Honoured Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased to announce today that the Information Technology Services Department has obtained its first ISO 9001 certificate. This demonstrates both local and international recognition of our conformance to a world-class IT quality standard.

The certificate is awarded without any 'non-conformity' by the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency (HKQAA) after an extensive audit on our Professional Support Services, which include methodology development, support, training, and quality assurance. With this outstanding result, we have also obtained another recognition from the reputable British Standards Institution, certifying our quality work at the international level.

Since the late 80's, my Department has been progressively adopting a number of international standards in our software development activities, including the introduction of Projects in Controlled Environment (PRINCE), Function Point Analysis (FPA), Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology (SSADM), Rapid Application Development (RAD) and Quality Management. A quality management system modeled on the ISO 9001 standard has been in place to ensure the delivery of quality service which, I believe, has been the key to our success. In our commitment to 'Serving the Community', we have added a new dimension, and that is, 'with quality'.

To show our commitment to the provision of quality services, we sought formal certification of our well-developed quality system last year. This certification ascertains our conformance to the international quality requirements through formal measurement by both the local and international certification bodies.

With more development and maintenance work now being and to be outsourced, we would expect quality services from our contractors as well. Our certification status should motivate them to provide similar level of quality services. It in turn will benefit our user departments in providing the community with quality services.

Achieving ISO certification is just the beginning of our journey of continuous quality improvement. We will continue to keep up with our quality improvement initiatives and those in the IT industry.

Last but not least, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff involved in this certification project. With the outstanding result, I am sure that their experiences on the certification process and the quality system development will benefit everyone in the Department in our continuing quality improvements.

Thank you.

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