Quality Improvement Plan Activity to be considered:Increase market value by providing marketing materials on Green Building and strengthen communication with Chinese customers. Weakness/Strength:Chinese customers do not understand the benefit of Green Building, and also, they do not know any of the marketing value for the Green Building. This is the main reason that the project implementation process, most customers over-emphasizing early-stage investment costs, and do not consider the savings in long run. Impact measures:· 32.5% of companies have already implemented employee health management programs, 29.6% are in considering or in the process of implementing Green Building.· Since implement training, staffs improve their Green Building professional technology and teamwork skills. Now China has 2776 engineers earn the the LEED professional credential.· Participate in the Chinese government 13th Five-Year Plan of Green Building Development. At least 50% of newly constructed buildings should be Green Building certified. · China ranks first among LEED’s top ten national and regional markets, Over 1,211 certified projects and 47.16 million square meters of total certified area. Duration: January 2018 – December 2018 ActionOutcome/Success Criteria DeadlineResources Person responsibleMonitoring ArrangementsImplement a Green Building rating system Implemented LEED rating system issued by USGBC (U.S Green Building Council) and Three-Star rating system issued by Chinese government. One year China Green Building status reports Technical manager Review reports and sign offEnhance engineers’ Green Building knowledge, teamwork skills and earn a LEED professional credential2776 engineers earn the LEED professional credential. Improve their teamwork skill and Green Building technology one year materials, Staffs, Training feedback form, Room, Trainer Green Building Project Management ExpertTest, Attendance,Training progress report sign offExam resultDistribute the Green Buildings material for Chinese customers Increased awareness of green building projects Chinese customers Two months Website promotion, Free lectures, Magazine Customer Service ManagerChinese customers’ cognitive feedback for Green Building Projects Set the Green Building exhibition Chinese customers know if they use Green Building in their real-life experience Two months Shanghai, Exhibition Customers,Staffs, technology departments, Green Building modelsMarketing manager Customers experience Report and sign off Risk Specification:Risk Item Description: The insufficient number of Chinese staffs Green Building professionals. Most staffs from other countries, cannot speak Mandarin. It will lead to Chinese customers not clear about what is Green Building.Risk ID: RI-001Author: Ling TianRisk Statement Condition: (if) it is difficult to communicate with Chinese customers, they will not accept the Green Building. Risk Statement Consequence: (then) then, they will not accept the Green Building. Then, Green Building will be difficult to sell, then, lead real estate developers to reduce investment in Green Building. Then the company will lose Chinese market. Probability: HIGHImpact: HIGHEarliest risk could have an effect: training engineers’ Green Building technology, teamwork skills and earn a LEED professional credentialLatest the risk could have an effect: during set the Green Building exhibition Mitigation Plans: things that can avoid the risk/how you can avoid· Distribute information and publicity materials in Chinese.· Let staffs learn about Chinese culture and communication skill.· Divide into the group of Chinese customers with different ages and educational level, and make sure staffs know customers’ requirements about the Green Building.· Promote LEED professional credential, ask more Chinese staffs earn that credential.· Implementation of an international teamwork mechanism, and requires strict implementation of employees, respect for Chinese culture, and compliance with the Chinese market rules.· Improve staff’s language skills, good at using Mandarin and English.Contingency Plans: what if the risk happens/what will you do· According to feedback from Chinese customers, conduct an emergency meeting with employees.· Rewards earn LEED Professional Credential Engineers and provided more promotion opportunities, and also good salary. Reflective Report Quality Improvement Plan: Activity Nowadays, China’s economy is developing rapidly, especially in the construction industry, but at the expense of environmental quality. In recent years, China’s air quality has been declining. The quality of people’s living environment has been declining. The demand for green environmental protection has been increasing. At the same time, due to the continuous development of science and technology in China, the technical requirements for the construction industry are also increasing. Therefore, compared with other countries, China’s Green Building revolution took place on a large scale and developed rapidly (Zhou, 2015). According to this situation, China increasingly needs green buildings, meanwhile China becomes a huge Green Building market. Therefore, U.S Green Building Council (USGBC) implement LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) system to help Chinese market identify Green Building, and also LEED system seeks to work in harmony with China Green Building policy, but when the company analyzing the Chinese market, they found Chinese customers do not have motivation to buy Green Building, the market requirements are not positive on Green Building, therefore how to increase market value and organization by providing marketing materials on Green Building, strengthen, communication with Chinese customers, it becomes necessary for the plan. For the Chinese customers, the first thing, they have defects in understanding, cognition and value system of Green Building concept, due to different level of education for Chinese customers, many customers think that green building knowledge is too professional, not associated with their daily life, most of customers think does not needs to understand. Simultaneously, the concept of Green Building is also developing too fast. It is difficult for Chinese customers to accept it in a short time. And also, they consider about the huge upfront costs (Guo and Lin, 2012). In fact, in the United States, the cost of certification is generally between 1% and 7%, while the premium for Green Building is about 7.5% (Syphers, 2003). But in China, a survey shows that the average incremental cost of Green Building is 3.05-10.845% of infrastructure, about 36.6-302.7 yuan /square meter slightly higher than in the United States (Li and Sun, 2008). Most of the incremental costs are derived from the use of energy saving technology. Hence, the real estate developers lack interest, for the real estate developers, designers and contractors are only interested in getting more profits. If the customers think the Green Building price is higher than normal building, they will not buy Green Building, the real estate developers cannot make profit, therefore, the they will not want to develop the Green Building projects, the USGBC cannot implement LEED system. Secondly, it is the lack of professional staffs in China. To implement Green Building assessment, such as LEED system, there must be a large number of professionals who are good at architecture and environmental knowledge. Although there are many architects and engineers who have experience in project design and construction, there are few educational or training backgrounds for sustainable building in China (Shi, 2009). Therefore, the USGBC needs to be training more engineers who can know Green Building technology and ask engineers earn a LEED professional credential. This will allow China to have more professionals and at the same time have a good publicity role for Green Building and LEED system. This will ultimately achieve the popularity of Green Building knowledge for Chinese customers, promote Chinese customers’ purchase motives, and increase the market for Green Building demand.
Thirdly, China is a big country. As one of the largest countries in the world, differences in climate, natural resources and economic conditions in different regions, hence, the customers have different requirements with Green Building, so it difficult to implement LEED system. For example, water resources are now a real problem in the development of the northern region, while the southern region is a small problem. In addition, the imbalance of regional economic development makes it difficult to implement the LEED system (Shi, 2009). In this case, the USGBC should know every part Chinese customers’ requirements, meanwhile, when using the LEED system, adjust according to different regions. Figure 1: Green Building were distributed in China in March 2013. Source: Zhou, 2015 Finally, compared with other countries, China’s Green Building plan is usually top-down, almost, and it relies on bureaucratic levels and means of implementation. Almost Chinese customers follow government policy. Therefore, USGBC should follow the Chinese government. Actively participate in the Chinese government’s Green Building policy activities, supported by Chinese government policies, let more Chinese customers know the benefits of Green Building, and also promote Green Building knowledge and technology develop in China (Li et al., 2014). Quality Improvement Plan: Impact measure The Market manager identified impact measures to assess the impact of the Quality improvement plan. It is expected that most of the improvements can be seen. With continuous improvement, we can see that LEED system continues to develop in the Chinese market. The concept of green architecture continues to penetrate the hearts of people. In fact, the USGBC needs to develop a large number of LEED system Green Building assessment professionals. Since USGBC implement training, staffs improve their Green Building professional technology and teamwork skills. Now, China has 2776 engineers earn the LEED professional credential (USGBC, 2015). At the present, 32.5% of companies have already implemented employee health management programs, 29.6% are in considering or in the process of implementing Green Building (CBRE, 2017). But for the Chinese market, it is not enough, the USGBC needs more and more professional staffs to help the company. Therefore, by implementing the training program it will help ensure staff morale is maintained, as, is productivity. Meanwhile, The Chinese government has pledged to increase the number of Green Building from 2% to 50% by 2020. USGBC popularized LEED in line with China’s 13th Five-Year vision and followed the Green Building policy of the Chinese government to contribute to these goals (Li et al., 2014). The reason for this is that allowing Chinese customers to understand the USGBC and the LEED system of Green Building through government policies, it is very easy for Chinese customers to trust USGBC, and at the same time understanding that green buildings have become the focus of Chinese government’s development. Not only does the national development require Green Building, but also Conducive to their own health, improve the living environment. It will make Chinese customers have the motivation to buy Green Building. If the impacts are seen and measured it will confirm that the improvements the implementation of the Quality improvement plan, were both successful.Quality Improvement Plan: Actions After analysis by the market department, since the quality improvement plan is related to each department and depends on other organization departments to work together, the final quality improvement activities are continuously adjusted, so in order to better understand each relationship, analyze the various steps and results, market consultants A map of Ishikawa, also known as fish bone analysis, was performed, fishbone analysis was carried out (appendix 1) (Slack et al 2013; Shahin et al 2012). Through analysis, the company can identify the root cause of the problem and find out why these processes do not function effectively (Slack et al 2013; Van Assen et al 2009). Through the above analysis, the company proposed four actions to include in the quality improvement plan.Action 1. Implement a Green Building rating system According to the Luo, Kanzaki and Matsushita (2017) survey, most Chinese customers do not understand what is Green Building. And also, they do not know how to identify a Green Building. Even some people think a building built in the forest is the Green Building. Hence, the USGBC implements LEED system in China in order to make customers know what is the really Green Building. Become the important step in QIP. For LEED system, it seeks to work in harmony with China Green Building policy (Li et al., 2014). Now the Chinese government pays more attention to Green Building and has introduced a series of incentive policies. Therefore, implementing the LEED system and the Three-Star rating system issued by the Chinese government are the basis of QIP. Meanwhile, the USGBC should closely follow the Chinese government’s green building policy. System identification of Green Building, solving Chinese customers’ blind spots that do not know how to identify Green Building. Furthermore, the more number of different of rating system indicates the more attention that people have gave to the Green Building, but this might lead to the inconsistence of evaluation of the level of Green for a building. But at this stage, different types of rating system can compete with each other to enhance the quality of rating system. Action 2. Enhance the engineers’ Green Building knowledge, teamwork skills and earn a LEED professional certificate If the number of engineer’s skilled in Green Building technology is too few, the cost of implement Green Building project is very high, because the project needs to hire the export with very high salary. To promote the application of the LEED Green Building assessment system, there must be sufficient professionals who are mastering sustainable building knowledge. There is currently a shortage of professionals who conduct LEED Green Building assessment system. The only way to get out of this obstacle is to launch training and education programs (Shi, 2009). This work should also begin immediately because it is a major prerequisite for the application of the LEED Green Building Assessment System. At the same time, USGBC will gradually establish a personnel assessment system to promote teamwork. Until 2015, China had 2,776 engineers earning LEED professional certificates (USGBC, 2015), but for USGBC, the number of people who have LEED professional certificates in the Chinese market was far from enough. Therefore, continuous staff training and education became very important. Action 3. Distribute the Green Buildings material for Chinese customers In order to increase the demand for Green Building in the Chinese market, the LEED system was used to identify Green Building. This requires the promotion of Green Building knowledge among Chinese customers, free lectures, publicity through China social software, such as Weibo and WeChat, distribution of free magazines, like ‘LEED IN MOTION: GREATER CHINA’, promotion of the company’s webpage, and free textbooks, provide both Chinese and English versions. Through this series of practices, USGBC can gradually increase the awareness of Chinese customers’ Green Building, and more and more people are paying attention to sustainable construction. For example, more and more people like to purchase energy-efficient homes with good indoor environment. During the renovation phase of the house, people no longer care about luxurious materials, but instead pay attention to healthy materials. Their idea is how to make their home comfortable and healthy instead of making them luxury goods. Houses with better performance in Green Building are usually sold at higher prices. The public’s understanding of Green Building will form a market driving force for the application of LEED Green Building assessment (Shi, 2009), and this is the key to the QIP. The goal of distributing material is to make the customer understanding the benefit of Green Building. So, the material could be something that give lively experience of the feeling of Green Building and non-Green Building. Action 4. Set the Green Building exhibition In order to better allow Chinese customers to experience a truly Green Building certified by the LEED system, in 2018, a Green Building exhibition will be held in Shanghai in from October 23rd to 24th (USGBC, 2018). In this exhibition, we should focus on the implementation of the LEED system and carry out a lecture on Green Building knowledge, involving not only the staffs of the construction industry, but also the participation of educators, students and representatives of all walks of life. Today, the Chinese market has become the focus of USGBC. As of December 2017, China has 47 million square meters of LEED space certification (USGBC, 2018). Through this exhibition, the focus is that Green Building with LEED system certification are becoming more and more familiar to Chinese customers and give priority to Green Building with LEED system certification when choosing Green Building and promote the continued development of USGBC in China. Also, we can utilize the current progress in VR technology to allow the customer merging into the environment of Green Building remotely. Risk Assessment: Risk specification, Probability and Impact Measures Risk is the potential to gain or lose a certain value. Value may increase or lose when a risk is foreseen or unforeseen for a particular action or action. Risk can also be defined as the interaction between conscious and uncertainty (Hunter, 2007). Uncertainty is a potential, unpredictable, and uncontrollable outcome; in spite of uncertainty, risk is the result of action (Antunes and Gonzalez, 2015). Risk assessment enables the organization to better control its risks, but since USGBC develops the Chinese market, the most critical part is communication with Chinese customers, improving communication quality, improving employees’ professional skills and team collaboration capabilities, during which time it may be Various situations occur and therefore need to continue. Impact pictures (PIP) provide a flexible format for describing risks and allow the application of numerical probabilities and ranges of influence to prioritize the importance of risk resolution（Hopkinson, et al 2008). The identified risks are placed on the risk grid and evaluated based on the probability and impact (Appendix 2). The risks can be determined based on the uncertainty of the events and the outcome of the events（Hopkinson, et al 2008). Therefore, according to this situation, the main uncertainties are whether the employees actively participate in professional and technical training and whether they have obtained LEED professional certification and join in training for international team cooperation. The insufficient number of Green Building professionals in the Chinese market, most employees from other countries do not speak Mandarin and it is difficult to communicate with Chinese customers. Due to differences in language and culture within the organization, there is a problem with team collaboration. At the same time, the earliest point at which the risk can be triggered is to train training engineers in Green Building expertise and require them to successfully obtain LEED professional certification and train teamwork. Due to lack of professional and technical personnel, uncoordinated teamwork, and reduced work efficiency, it is difficult to effectively communicate with Chinese customers. Green building is difficult to sell. Real estate developers will reduce investment in Green Building. This will lead to a decline in USGBC profits and loss of Chinese market share. Therefore, the risk is expected to have a high impact on the entire operation process. However, with the improvement of professional skills of employees, the number of LEED professional certifications has increased, while the Green Building and LEED systems have been widely promoted by Chinese employees. When communicating with customers, China Employees can communicate with more meticulous Chinese customers to understand their needs and the needs of the Chinese market. At the same time, through the training of teamwork, the internal culture of the organization is gradually unified, and the work efficiency is increased. However, this process is not a short-term process. In order to reduce the possibility and seriousness of this situation, necessary mitigation measures must be taken, and the management process is more effective. Risk Assessment: Mitigation and Contingency Consultants are highly likely to assess risks, so the company has implemented several mitigations plans to avoid risks. Use the Risk IT Chart (Appendix 3) to help determine mitigation and contingency plans. In formulating the plan, the first priority was to determine the enthusiasm of employees for training, especially Chinese employees, followed by the training of international teamwork, the degree of employee participation, and the time taken to adapt to changes in international teamwork. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce risks. Take effective measures. For the USGBC organization, effective management of risks can avoid unnecessary losses, and successfully apply the LEED system to the Green Building market in China. Therefore, it is important for the USGBC to determine appropriate mitigation and emergency measures. First of all, different training programs are formulated for employees of different nationalities and cultures. Employees of non-Chinese nationality organizations organize skills in learning about Chinese culture and how to communicate with Chinese customers so that non-Chinese nationals can increase their understanding of the Chinese market, understand Chinese customer needs, and can also improve teamwork efficiency with Chinese employees. Reduce unnecessary conflicts caused by culture. For Chinese employees, they are required to obtain LEED professional certification while strengthening their professional skills in Green Building. Chinese and English versions are used for teaching materials and public materials. To make up for the shortcomings of the lack of professional and technical personnel in the Chinese market, to send more professional talents to the Chinese market. At the same time, USGBC has also obtained more Chinese technical talents, which can further promote the development of USGBC in China. However, if the mitigation plan fails, the brake emergency plan becomes indispensable. If the risk is out of control, the company first needs to hold an emergency meeting to make a contingency plan. Training participation often depends on the enthusiasm of employees. This is a subjective factor. Companies can use incentives to encourage employees to participate in training. Finally, according to the feedback from Chinese customers, the company can further learn about the problems that the staffs have and make corresponding countermeasures.
Appendix 1: Fish Bone analysis Appendix 2: Risk Grid RiskCauseImpactProbabilityClassification codeThere is no sufficient green building technology for Chinese employeesThe concept of Green Building is not high in China, and lack of technical support for the Chinese marketHigh3High36Training participation is not highLack of professional and technical personnel, and teamwork cannot be improved at the same timeHigh3Medium25Chinese employees are not enthusiastic about obtaining LEED professional certificationThe lack of LEED technical personnel in the Chinese market cannot effectively promote the use of LEED’s Green Building market in China.High 3Medium 25 Non-Chinese employees do not speak ChineseCommunication difficulties with Chinese customers and some government employees of the Chinese government will cause Chinese customers to be unclear about what Green Building are and the government does not support the development of the company.Medium2Medium2 4The international team fail to cooperateInefficient work, obstacles to work progress Medium2Low13 Probability and Impact RatiosLow = 1 pointMedium = 2 pointsHigh = 3 pointsCombined totals2-3 = Risk probability needs to be monitored4-6 = Mitigation and contingency plans required
Appendix 3: Risk IT Diagram
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