Pál J. Molnár
ABOUT THE PRESENTATION
Innovation and Quality for Development of Competitiveness of Companies
In the competitive global market quality, costs and productivity are particularly important indicators for the corporate management. Quality is prioritised due to the reason that this is one of the major competitive advantages. Economic growth is only possible when innovations constantly surface, and that the market adopts. A company can hardly survive without innovations that produce profit. Anyone who undertakes the path to excellence should be in front, has to overtake others, must achieve a leap forward. To be in front means to be better, more effective, more efficient, more economic, more ecologically aware or more social and proactive than others. The direction and speed of change are important. One can only reach the top through major changes, through major innovations including evaluation phases and continuous improvement. To overcome the problems including the 2008 economic crisis and the global climate change and to built up social, economic and environmental responsibility in all areas, the need for not only creating breakthrough levels of productivity improvement but also assessing development from different perspectives has been understood clearly. The innovative firm is focused on developing new value added products and services as well as production technology and the processes via small steps (e. g. Kaizen) or BPR or via completely new solutions (e. g. breakthrough). The present situation relating to innovation and quality on company level is discussed in details as lesson learned in the past and as quality vision of the future. Also the three approaches to innovation will be described.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Pál J. Molnár, Professor for Quality Management and Food Quality and Safety at the University of Szeged (Hungary), Faculty of Engineering. He studied Food Technology and Biochemistry at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He got PhD by the same University in 1972 and DSc by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1996. He was Deputy Director General of the Hungarian Food Control Authority and later Director of the Food Quality Center at the Central Food Research Institute in Budapest. Now he is President and CEO of the Hungarian National Committee of the European Organization for Quality (EOQ). He is editor of the Hungarian scientific-technical periodicals: “Quality and Reliability” and “Food Investigations”. Pál Molnár is Representative of the European Members of the International Academy for Quality, Hungarian National Representative in the EOQ, Co-Chairman of the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Methods of Analysis and Sampling (CCMAS) and has several other positions in national and international organizations.
He published 3 scientific books and almost 400 papers in Hungarian, English and German language. He was Congress Chairman of the 44th EOQ Congress in Budapest in 2000 and of the 55th EOQ Congress (World Quality Congress) also in Budapest in 2011. He was organizer of many other national and international quality and food conferences and seminars, he edited more than 50 conference and seminar proceedings in the field of quality and food science.
Prof. Molnar was invited lecturer of many international Quality Conferences and Honorary Member of the Croatian Quality Organization and of the Philippine Society for Quality. He received several awards in Hungary and abroad.
