INTRODUCTION

There are three quality management program that has been conducted at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) particularly for the purpose of certification and accreditation. One of the ISO certifications programs that has been certified at UPM since the year 2000 is the ISO 9000 series. Another ISO certification that has been acquired at UPM is ISO 27001 which is the information security management system. Besides that, UPM academic lab also has been certified with ISO 17025 or the laboratory management system to ensure that the academic and research lab UPM are being certified and administered at certain quality standards that has been specified in the ISO requirements.

Besides the quality certification or the service provided at UPM for the academic and administration services, the UPM academic program also being accredited by the nation qualification agencies (NQA) and since 2010, UPM was awarded with self-accreditation status by NQA where the university was given the authority to  accredit and certify every program offered at the university at UPM more than 160 academic program including the undergraduates in the postgraduate programs was accredited and registered under the Malaysian Qualification Registration (MQR) at Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA).

ISO9001: QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

The ISO 9001 experience, the history of Quality Management System (QMS) at UPM started since 1997 when UPM has implemented for the first time to get the ISO 9001:1994 certification in response to the public service circular, number 2 (1996) dated 11 July 1996 where the department of public service has required every government agency has to be certified with the ISO 9001 series. The public service circular was issued from time to time to make sure that every government agency continued to update and being recertified with the ISO certification and the latest circular was the public service transformation circular 2018, which is requires every government agency to be certified with ISO 9001:2015 series. However, their first initiative for ISO certification was a failure but it was a very good lesson for UPM to experience the journey, the requirement, and the involvement required including the people and other resources for the purpose of quality management system accreditation.

After the first initiative, which was planned to get their ISO certification for the entire university was not successful, the follow up initiative was started in 1999 where strategy for certification was shifted to every course centre, which the faculty and other entities in the university. The first faculty that has started the initiative was the faculty of veterinary in 1991 and they have managed to successfully being certified with ISO 9001:1994 certification in the year 2000. After that, each course centre has started the initiative to get the ISO certification and by 2010, UPM entities was certified with 28 different ISO certification specifically for the ISO 9001:2000 series.

To be more cost effective, UPM has make a decision to go for one or single certification of ISO for the entire university activities, so in 2011, university was certified by ISO 9001: 2000 for the entire university activities that covers the scope of teaching, research and services. As what is required by ISO certification, the following year the university was re-certified and also has successfully going through the civilian’s audit. In 2017, UPM has managed to be re-certified with ISO 9001: 2015 which is the latest or the current ISO certificate and still managed to keep the certificate during re-certification audit in 2021. The illustration of the ISO9001 journey is shown in Fogure5.1.

Figure 5.1: The Journey of Quality Management System (QMS) for ISO 9001 at UPM

The specific scope of the quality management system at UPM covers the academic services at the tertiary level management and the implementation of research activities, industry and community network, management and development of university students and alumni, and also the corporate services. The quality management system scope covers the teaching and learning activities for the pre-university or the foundation program, the undergraduate, postgraduate and also the research and support services entities. ISO 9000 is the international organization standardization certification with the headquarters located at Geneva, Switzerland and the system was updated including the certification license was awarded to several countries including Malaysia. The exemplar ISO certifications are the ISO 9000 which is for Quality Management System (QMS), ISO 27001 for Information Security Management System (ISMS), ISO 14001 for Environmental Management System (EMS) and the ISO 17025 for Laboratory Management System (LMS) that UPM has managed to acquire.

The main objective of having this ISO certification is no other than to proof and verify the quality management system that is within the university are be able to be complied to the required standard of the ISO 9000. The scope of ISO 9000 standards, requirement and criteria covers the context or the institutional context, leadership, quality management planning, resource support, the operationalization of the institutional activities, performance evaluation and quality improvement initiative. The certification is the result of third party audit based on the evidence that UPM has proved the compliance to the 10 criteria of the quality standards as shown in the Figure 5.2.

Figure 5.2: Clause Standard of ISO 9001:2015

BENEFITS OF QMS AT UPM

The benefit behind the quality management system for UPM and also other higher institution is to make sure that the core activities of the institutional operation should have a systematic approach and assured with the quality standard. The quality management system certification is also very important to gain confidence and establish network with customers and other stakeholders. In line with the university's vision for international reputation, ISO 9000 or the quality management system certification is very crucial to establish a national and international recognition. As far as higher education industry is concerned which covers the public and private institution, ISO certification or the quality management system will enhance the competitive advantage of the organization with the ISO certification. As far as for the purpose of promotion and institutional reputation, the quality management certification will assure the image of the organization or the institution.

Figure 5.3: Benefits of Quality Management System

The approach that being used by UPM, as far as the quality management system initiative is concerned is using the plan do check and action (PDCA) approach as illustrated in Figure 10. This approach was used as the engine of the quality management system framework or the entire process of the ISO certification. It begins with the internal and external issues of the university taking into all considerations of the concern and expectation on the relevant stakeholders. Based on that, the quality management procedures, policies and guidelines were designed through the PDCA approach in the process to achieve the university key performance indicator (KPI). The UPM KPI was determined based on the strategic goals of the university which is based on the vision and mission of UPM.

Figure 5.4: PDCA and the Clause Structure of ISO 9001:2015

UPM has gone through the normal process that has been required for the purpose of certification, including the preparation of the quality management documentation, the implementation of the quality activities and processes, the internal or the exercise and also the third-party audit by SIRIM for the first-time certification. The following years after certification, it was annual event of quality management civilian and also ISO re-certification process. The detail flow of the accreditation process is shown in Figure 5.5.

Figure 5.5: Process of ISO 9001 Certification

The ultimate recognition on the quality management system at UPM that was achieved in 2017 was the Standards and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM) quality award, as a recognition as one of the institutions that has managed to achieve the high-quality management standards with the evidence of management commitment, the implementation of ISO 9000 standard and other quality management initiatives.

Figure 5.6: SIRIM Quality Award

INFORMATION SECURITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (ISMS), ISO 27001:2013 SERIES.

The system is basically a standard that requires the institution or UPM, who have a systematic approach with a very structured design in term of the information management system being fundamental requirement of ISMS is to ensure the protection and security assurance of the information that is being managed by UPM. The information is actually owned by the institutional entities, the customers, and also the stakeholders. The information that owned by the UPM entities including the academic information, the human resource information, the financial information, and other related information regarding the management and administration of higher education activities. The information of the main of our customer which is the student's information including their personal information, their academic records information and also the information about their feedback towards university management. Other stakeholders including the information of the suppliers or subcontractors who had the official interaction with the university administration.

The core content of the ISMS certification is based on confidentiality of information that is accessible and the perfection of the information from unauthorized parties. The second scope of ISMS is the assurance of the integrity of the information, which covers the aspect validity, accuracy and the completeness of the information. The information updating activities is a continuous activity within the system to make sure that all information is being assured with their validity and reliability. The third aspect of ISMS is the assurance of availability of information for the purpose of knowledge sharing, information accessibility for the purpose of management and administration of university activities and the availability of the system and platform for the purpose of academic and research activities from time to time.

Figure 5.7: The Principles of Information Security

The main scope of the ISMS at UPM covers the security information of the students during registration and also the records of the personal information of every authorized student in the university. The second aspect of information security is included under ISO 27001 at UPM including the information security of the teaching assessment process by the undergraduate and postgraduate students at the university.

RISK-BASED THINKING AND AUDIT EXERCISE IN QMS

The other aspect of quality management system at UPM includes risk analysis of the UPM operation, or we call it operational risk of UPM. This is one of the requirements of ISO 9000 which covers under clause four,  six and  nine which require risk and opportunity identification, risk analysis and risk mitigation as part of the risk management process. So, at UPM, there is profiling activities that covers not only the operational risk but also the strategic risk and compliance risk.

One of the most common quality management activities at UPM is the audit exercise. At UPM, as it is required as part of the ISO criteria which is under clause 9.2, the internal audit activities, UPM is very much aggressive to ensure the internal audit activities are being implemented according to the schedule and the approach that UPM is conducting is the self-audit approach where the university entities have to do their own internal audit on every activity that is included under ISO certification.

SELF-ACCREDITATION STATUS FOR ACADEMIC PROGRAMME

Another scope of quality management and assurance at UPM is the  quality accreditation of academic programme. This  verification and certification  status covers the quality of academic  standards on the content, assessment process, delivery and the administration of every academic program offered at UPM. The agency that is responsible for the national level quality assurance of academic program under Ministry of Higher Education is the Malaysian Qualification Agencies (MQA) that requires quality assurance of every academic program that should comply to the standard specified. MQA was first established in 2007 under the means allegation as the only body that is responsible to supervise, monitor and coordinate the quality assurance activities with the accreditation process at the national level. The platform for quality assurance process is the Malaysian Qualification Register (MQR) which is the source of reference which contained the records, specification and the details of every academic program offered at the higher education level at the national level for the local and international reference.

UPM was awarded our first self-accreditation status and the self-accreditation need to be renewed every five years. The self-accreditation status of UPM will allow UPM to accredit our academic program in compliance to the requirement of Malaysian Qualification Framework (MQF) and need to be registered under MQR. The process of quality assurance of the academic program starts from the departmental level of every faculty that is offering and running a particular program and need to get clearance through the curriculum revision committee of the university before it will go through the self-accreditation committee of academic program before it is going to be tabled and passed by the University Senate. The ultimate authority for the quality academic program confirmation is to be tabled by university board of director for confirmation before the registration of the program is going to be approved by the Ministry of Higher Education.

Figure 5.8: Logo of SWA Accreditation

Some of the main references for the academic quality assurance are the Malaysian Qualification Framework (MQF), academic programme Code of Practice, programs document standards, guidelines to good practices of academic programme and other documents including the circular or the decision made from time to time by the higher education ministry or the MQA.

Figure 5.9: Quality Assurance Reference Documents by MQA

For institutional self-accreditation process, UPM has to follow the code of practice for institutional audit by the MQA which covers the scope of quality assurance of the academic policy and governance, the delivery of academic program, the availability of resource and support for academic activities and the policy for continuous improvement of any academic activities. The program code of practice that has to be accredited should comply to the requirement of the program management and delivery requirements, assessment of student learning, students’ selection and supports services, the competency of academic and administrative staff, the availability of educational resources, the management of a particular program administration, and finally, the monitoring program, review exercise and the continuous improvement policy and activities.

The continuous improvement activities of academic program at UPM are also applying the PDCA concept for the purpose of continual quality improvement which covers the internal quality assurance on the design of the program curriculum with the role of central quality assurance centre of UPM and to be aligned towards the realization of UPM strategic plan. The internal and external holders’ opinion and feedback is so crucial for the purpose of continuous improvement and to renew the quality management design to ensure that the quality learning outcome can be achieved.

Figure 5.10: Framework of Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) at UPM

VARIOUS QUALITY MANAGEMENT PROGRAM AT UPM

Some other various quality management program at UPM covers the 5S which includes the requirement of 5S specification as part of the quality management requirement is concerned. The 5S concept is important for the purpose of internal quality improvement of a particular activities which includes the academic and services support activities. In 5S program specifically requires the activities to sort any document information, according to the requirement to set things in order so that the document is organized in a proper system. Activities to shine is to ensure cleanliness and neatness of every activity in the organization, the standardize specification is for the purpose of coordination and consistency of records and system in the organization and also as it is to sustain those activities, to ensure that whatever quality management system can be maintained at all times.

The 5S system was revised for the context of public sector, which is introduced by the public service department, which is called the Conducive Ecosystem for Public Sector (EKSA). This is beyond 5S which is not only covers the specific scope of work or any academic and service activities, but it covers the entire environment, condition and the efficiency of activities. One of the key aspects of EKSA requirement are under the scope of the corporate image, under the scope of conducive working environment, the element of creativity and innovation, under the scope of the safety and healthy workplace and finally the approach of green environment which involve the recycle, reduce reuse and reduce of resources involved within the institutional activities. As far as UPM is concerned, the EKSA program is in the process of replacing the 5S because it covers more broad perspective and it ensure the long term and the overall conducive environment of the working condition.

The Kumpulan Innovatif dan Kreatif (KIK) program has been implemented at UPM for the past five years to encourage the continuous improvement of any activities within the university scope of services based on the creativity and innovative ideas of our internal resources. This is for the purpose of continuous improvement, cost efficiency and also the effective approach of work implementation and customer service.

Finally, the quality management system and other initiatives at UPM has proven the high-level of achievement which has managed to fulfill the objectives of quality management system and program at UPM to ensure the customers and stakeholders satisfaction, establish network and the relationship with relevant parties as far as academic activities of UPM and finally establish a sustainable performance to uplift the grand image of UPM as an excellent higher education institution to ensure the international reputation.