Suranan Chainawawichit, 49, has lived in the Bangkok district of Phaya Thai since 2001. As it is in central Bangkok, she thought she would not have to worry about blackouts. She was wrong.
Shoppers file out of MBK Center after a mass power blackout hit Pathumwan district in February 2013. PATIPAT JANTHONG
"When there is strong wind or a sign of rain, I can guess that I might need to stop working for about an hour or so if the light goes out. Sometimes it feels insecure as my business relies on electricity,” said Mrs Suranan, who runs a laundry business she started seven years ago.
She is one of a small number of Thais who experience regular blackouts. Figures from the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) show there were 638 brownouts or blackouts in Bangkok from November-January.
"Because some transmission towers are located alongside mountains or fields, it might take an hour or so to reach them. This is because the terrain makes access difficult for vehicles carrying 20-30 kilogrammes of equipment to fix the power failure," said Tinnagorn Tosrigaw, director of Egat’s quality and safety development division.
The situation could be worse had it not been for Egat's quality control (QC) management to ensure power reliability and better services for the past 30 years.
Setting up the team to run quicker and safer operations are the two major areas where QC is being used to improve electricity transmission.
It also uses QC to improve services and increase cooperation between departments. In the industrial sector, QC is crucial in the development of high-quality products and services, particularly for export.
But part of QC also includes building the capacity of human resources to adapt skills they have learned into the production and services of the company. In turn, this will improve the company’s competitiveness.
Vitoon Simachokedee, permanent secretary for industry, believes that human resources are a crucial issue where Thailand lags behind other countries.
The economic slowdown has become a challenge for many companies to boost product quality. QC will increasingly play a crucial role for Thai businesses with the advent of the Asian Economic Community (AEC) in late 2015, he said.
More than half of the businesses in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, China and India, which are Thailand's main competitors, have incorporated QC into their products and services.
"Thailand urgently needs to actively encourage businesses to improve quality standards in order to compete in the global market," said Atchaka Sibunruang, director-general of the Industrial Promotion Department.
Since 1985, the department has been holding an annual Thailand Quality Control Convention to promote QC training for various sectors.
More than 10,000 businesses from the industrial sector and state-owned enterprises have joined the programme from the beginning. The department plans to train 800 to 1,000 businesses this year.
Mrs Atchaka said that despite various QC training courses being provided, most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) still pay little attention to them.
"Only 10-20% of the 170,000 SMEs in the manufacturing sector that are registered with the department pass the QC standard. Most are from medium-sized industries but there is little participation from small industries," she said.
When businesses use QC in the production process, it can reduce costs by as much as 100 million baht, depending on where it is applied. Human resources play a significant role for businesses to maintain production quality.
This year, 85 groups are presenting their products at the Thailand Quality Control Convention. One is Thai Carbon Black Plc, a manufacturer and distributor of carbon black for the domestic and international market.
"Encouraging our employees to learn about the production process is the solution to reduce production costs," said deputy general manager Sudarat Pongcharoen.
"When our staff learn about it, they can do a cost analysis and identify where we can save costs. We were able to save 100 million baht last year. We plan to apply this strategy at our branch in India."
For Egat, QC improvement has been conducted in the hope that there might be light at the end of the "blackout tunnel". About 1,000 staff are assigned to work this problem out to ensure the utility serves everyone in the country.
Bangkok residents such as Mrs Suranan remain hopeful that Egat's hard work will eventually bear fruit. "I still believe that, one day soon, there will be no more dark hours," she said.