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YOUR TRUSTED IT SERVICES PA R T N E R http://www.asl.com.hk MAY 2006 VOL. 27 An in-house publication of The ASL Group Quality and Service Improvement - A Never Ending Journey at ASL I n pursuit of highest quality IT services, ASL has been making consistent effort to achieve significant industry recognized standards and certifications. Further to gaining the certification of the ISO 9001:2000 for the Infrastructure and Managed Services Division (IMS) and Enterprise Business Solution Division (EBS) in year 1999 and year 2000 respectively, ASL's EBS attained Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Maturity Level 3 Rating for its systems and software engineering process in year 2005. CMMI is a worldwide recognized framework of industry best practices for system software engineering. In February 2006, EBS continued to succeed in renewal of the ISO 9001:2000 Certificate and compliance with ISO 90003:2004 on software development. ASL has become one of the very few companies in Hong Kong which has developed a regular monitoring mechanism to ensure service performance up to CMMI requirement. In order to consolidate and upgrade the existing quality control system, ASL's senior management staff and Fred Yim, Senior TQM Consultant and the Head of Quality Office, have formed a Quality Council which aims to improve service quality and enhance customer satisfaction in a planned, systematic and ongoing manner. The Council is responsible for implementing a comprehensive Quality Management System (QMS) tailor made for ASL. The QMS monitors performance of various IT services, including project-based, product related or infrastructure managed services. The system can assure delivery of highest quality service and meeting customer needs through the application of quality improvement processes, tools and techniques. The Council has received strong Disciplines: Systems Engineering/ support from the middle management, which communicates internally Software Engineering and externally that the company is fully committed to service excellence. According to Fred, the next target of the Council is to achieve a higher Scope of Services: Software Development with rating of CMMI and move on to the adoption of Six Sigma, a business- ISO 90003:2004 & Integrated driven approach to process improvement, so as to increase customer Information Technology Services satisfaction, and thereby the organization profitability. Indeed, quality and service improvement is a ceaseless task at ASL as stated in the company's quality policy.

Interview with the Head of the Efficiency Unit, A s the internet is becoming a major channel for people to search information nowadays, different types of commercial websites have mushroomed to meet this need. Does the government have a role to play in this? With the huge number of government departments involved in providing youth services, is a single government portal actually possible? Even if there is one, would it be just another website with a “common look and feel” with no distinctive appeal to young people? In an interview with the Head of the Efficiency Unit, Miss Kitty Choi, who recently launched the government Youth Portal under GovHK, she told us about the objectives, challenges faced and the process of developing the Portal. 4 AN IN-HOUSE PUBLICATION OF THE ASL GROUP

Miss Kitty Choi, on the Youth Portal Project DECEMBER 2007 VOL.30 5

Onscreen Marking System for Hong Kong T he Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Implementation of Onscreen Marking System Authority (HKEAA), a statutory body with one of its major responsibilities to conduct two of ASL formed a dedicated project team to assist HKEAA in Hong Kong’s largest public examinations – the Hong developing and customizing the OSM system in accordance Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) and with the requirement of public examinations in Hong Kong. To the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE), implement the OSM, ASL supplied, installed and integrated is committed to providing valid, reliable and equitable necessary hardware and software, including database and examinations and assessment services for Hong Kong. application servers at the two data centers of HKEAA and 1000 desktops for the three purpose-built Assessment Centres, located Every year, HKEAA recruits approximately 5000 markers at Lai King, Tsuen Wan and Wan Chai. Prior to the system roll-out, who are responsible for marking over 2 million examination ASL conducted a pilot test to refine onscreen marking procedures scripts. Traditionally, examination marking processes involve and ensure the smooth operation of the system. Besides, ASL set many manually operated procedures, including collection up a Disaster Recovery (DR) site at the secondary data center of original examination scripts from different examination of HKEAA and performed the DR drill, failover and resilience test centers, distribution of scripts to markers, return of marked to make sure there is no single point of failure in both primary examination scripts, and calculation and checking of the and secondary sites. ASL also provided on-going maintenance marks. To enhance the efficiency and quality of marking and support services and training services for HKEAA. provide better service, HKEAA called for the introduction of the centralized “Onscreen Marking System” (“OSM”), which The OSM was initially and successfully adopted in 2007 for is the first-of-its-kind in Hong Kong, in 2006 and appointed the marking of HKCEE English and Chinese Language papers. ASL as one of the prime contractors to develop a Web- Up to September 2008, it has already been implemented for ten based OSM, that can automate the marking process and subjects of the HKCEE and HKALE. deliver higher accuracy, security, quality and efficiency of script marking. With the implementation of the OSM, markers can simply view and mark, by using mouse clicks, on the scanned answer images of scripts via secure intranet at the Assessment Centres. The system will then capture all the marks and annotations by markers and automatically compute the total score and store in a central database. The efficiency and accuracy of marking are increased with human errors minimized. Before markers can do actual onscreen marking, they must pass a qualifying test to ensure 4 AN IN-HOUSE PUBLICATION OF THE ASL GROUP

Examinations and Assessment Authority marking quality. The system enables real-time monitoring of marking consistency. In case significant discrepancy is detected by automatic statistical analysis of the marking, showing markers are too harsh or too lenient, the chief examiner on duty at the centre can provide prompt advice and support to markers for early remedial action. The digital based system also allows individual script or question to be allocated to different specialized markers, offering flexible and immediate distribution of script for double marking. In addition, more detailed information on the marking of each question is made available, thus providing a ready source for analysis on candidates’ performance and better feedback to schools and teachers. Moreover, the system facilitates easy retrieval of stored scanned scripts for appeal processing and research. The OSM is capable to support 1600 concurrent markers at the Assessment Centres. To facilitate markers to book their seating at the Assessment Centres, ASL also developed an Online Booking System, and an Exam Personnel Management System for HKEAA to manage profile of markers and non-marker exam personnel, facilitating exam personnel recruitment. The OSM eliminates the physical movement of scripts, enhancing the efficiency, accuracy, security and quality of examinations and assessment process with remarkable results. We are happy to see that the system was successfully roll-out in less than a year with the dedicated effort of ASL project team, and markers generally prefer onscreen marking to manual marking. Besides, the project has recently received MIS Asia IT Excellence Awards 2008 in the category of Best Change Management (Government). – Mr. Tsang Kwong-nap, General Manager – IT, HKEAA OCT 2008 VOL.31 5

Riding on IT to realize the benefits of W ith the increasing use of group collaboration tools to support team work in today's digital business world, the volume of electronic data including text documents, emails, reports, transactional data and XML, image, audio or video files is proliferating at between 65 and 200 percent annually within most enterprises. This content is largely unstructured but contains valuable business knowledge. The need to capture and reuse this information has fueled the adoption of Knowledge Management (KM), which helps companies and their staff transfer data into information and then into knowledge or values, so as to enhance organizational performance. KM provides businesses with a cost-effective solution to many simple, practical questions. It helps them accumulate knowledge, learn from experience and avoid repeating the same project mistakes. Centralized management can also ensure the secure storage and easy accessibility of data, thus facilitating decision- making and helping new staff contribute more quickly. Not surprisingly, then, KM initiatives have been actively pursued by many leading organizations around the world. A 2002 survey by KPMG Consulting showed that over 81% of 423 large organizations in the UK, Europe and the US had a KM programme in place. For example, Whirlpool and Procter & Gamble are using in-house information or Web-based collaboration networks to push new projects into the product development pipeline at more than twice the normal pace. These projects have gone on to generate millions of dollars in revenue. In Hong Kong, numerous KM projects have also been rolled out such as building information portals and communities of practice initiated by government departments or large private sector corporations. Their aims are to improve information access, enhance operational efficiency and boost competitiveness. The KM process consists of capturing mass amounts of unstructured data; storing and filing information; disseminating and sharing common knowledge; and data integration and analysis. IT tools such as content management, business intelligence and enterprise information portals help companies implement KM effectively. Technologies for Knowledge Management Content Management Document management, records management and Web content management systems have different formats and user requirements. Enterprise content management solutions provide a unified platform for capturing, transformation, indexing, storage, security, retention and workflow initiation of all types of content while ensuring that the information remains available only to authorized persons. This helps organizations accelerate their business processes, reduce processing costs, and enhance customer satisfaction. One world-leading lamp manufacturer has used Web-based document management and collaboration 2 AN IN-HOUSE PUBLICATION OF THE ASL GROUP

Knowledge Management technology to develop a product information system with full indexing and search functions, resulting in a significant reduction in paper usage, distribution costs and phone bills. Technical documents are now available to all system users at any time via the Internet. KM technology has already helped the company achieve a 201% return on its modest start-up and deployment costs. Business Intelligence The ultimate objective of knowledge management is to enhance the company's performance. Business Intelligence (BI) solutions make this possible by helping them streamline the process of extracting data and transforming it into valuable information for forecasting, analysis and reporting purposes. In particular, BI solutions can help businesses formulate key performance indicators (KPI) for measuring their corporate performance and profitability. They can also provide alerts for critical business action and generate user-friendly reports with graphical presentations for fast and accurate decision making. For instance, decision makers can drill down into the revenue and cost of each product line to decide on the optimal product mix; or financial managers can automatically receive email alerts about overdue accounts. Enterprise Information Portal With an Enterprise Information Portal (EIP), connecting the organization's multiple resources and people in different locations has never been so easy and convenient. EIP provides a single, personalized interface for users to access information from different sources, and categorize and publicize it in a systematic way. It allows the sharing and dissemination of knowledge either internally or with external organizations through a secure web browser. For example, authorized branch office employees of a multinational legal firm can go to the company's portal to access headquarters' digitized legal documents. An EIP can also serve as a virtual and structured platform where experts or people with common interests meet to exchange information and develop innovative ideas. With a single query to its unified search engine, users can quickly locate the required information residing in different applications and data sources across the organization. Integrating knowledge into business practices is the key to KM's success. It requires a well-established implementation framework and alignment of the whole KM initiative with the company's core business strategies. With its solid IT experience and wide knowledge of different industry sectors, ASL has developed a proven process for implementing KM to fulfill specific customer needs, based on a set of guiding principles and industry best practices. ASL's full range of KM services encompasses feasibility studies, product or solution evaluation and recommendation, implementation, training and skills transfer. Customers can have complete confidence that our high-quality services will help them reap the benefits of KM and increase their competitive edge in today's ever-changing business world. OCT 2006 VOL.28 3