What time in the morning should we start working? How many working hours should we have during a day? Which standards should we consider while buying an ice-cream for our child or while importing cars in the country? Standardization is to take care of the abovementioned. This is a method made to facilitate processes and tasks; establishing standards of various kinds and improving efficiency to handle people, their interactions and activities in all fields of modern social life. 

A leading Auditor

“We are regional representative of Guardian Independent Certification (GIC) it is a UK company having numerous branches over the world. GIC regional office is responsible for 11 countries including Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc”, Dr Asadi informs.

Mr. Jahangir Asadi has more than eleven years’ experience in computer programming as well as in planning and standardization. He has also been a member of Standard Council of Canada for ten years. Dr. Asadi has also developed a new method of using mobile phones to establish and audit management systems. He has come to Georgia to share his experience and knowledge with Georgians and to work on improving the Standardization issue in this country.

“My grandfather was living in Georgia seventy years ago so I think that I belong to this land. Our mission here is to upgrade the standardization. We are doing our best to achieve our aim in this country and we hope that all the society, as well as the government and different organizations will support us in this great job”, he told Georgian Journal.

GIC-Georgia is going to upgrade standardization in all fields – from education, to medical and etc. The changes will start particularly from altering behavior, changing general activities and regulations on the basis of the internationally recognized standards. “For example, what is the problem if Georgian people start working at 8 o’clock? What is the problem if they have a 10- or 12-hour working day; like Japanese, the US or other people do in developed countries? This is about changing general attitudes and then substitute these new standards with non-standard traditions. This is what the improving of standardization in Georgia should start with”, Dr Asadi states.  According to him, for Georgia, making these steps forward will lead to facilitating its becoming the member of the EU.

“By rapprochement Georgian Standards to EU standards, Georgia will not only enter the European Union more easily, but also it will be able to maintain the membership, unlike many countries that face standardization problems, as the main obstacle for joining and staying in the EU”, Mr. Asadi told Georgian Journal.

GIC-Georgia has selected Tbilisi as a pilot project for the whole country. They hope that their work here will be successful and afterwards they will be able to start working on the issue in other cities of Georgia as well.

They have different methods for reaching the goal: organizing courses, trainings, international conferences, implementing employment programs, submitting suggestions, consulting to the government, as well as attracting investments in Georgia.

It is important to GIC-Georgia to cooperate with all organizations in Georgia. “We have already had some meetings with the Tbilisi City hall. We have explained them that we can provide their employees with free training courses and we are waiting for their response at the moment. It is quite important, since Tbilisi city hall is one of the crucial organizations that can widely change standards within the society, raise public awareness by spreading the word about the meaning of standards, their importance in everyday life and the damage that the lack of information about the standards can cause”, Dr. Asadi says.

GIC-Georgia has done a small survey concerning questions like “Do you know what is Standard?” or “Do you know which organization in Georgia is responsible for standardization?” As a result, it appeared, that many people have no response to these questions. “We have to transfer the standardization knowledge to the people via different facilities, including media, Georgian Insitute for standards, etc. The only thing we need is support. We do not need any material or economical help from the government, all we need is authorities, responsibilities from them; we need them coming to our meetings for their feedback of our activities. Our office is established here, in Tbilisi and we have contacts with many countries like Ukraine, Armenia, etc. On the basis of our contracts with them, they transfer money from their countries to Georgian bank, meaning that sums of money are being imported to Georgia and resulting certain economic growth for the country. Thus, we have no financial interests, what we need from different organizations and the government is just positive thinking, positive attitude to our job”, Dr. Asadi notes.

GIC-Georgia has signed a contract with Tbilisi State University, where GIC training courses will soon be organized for preparing tutors. The training courses will give the opportunity to the three top scoring students to travel to London for a one week Lead Auditor course for free, with GIC financing all the costs of their visit. As Dr. Asadi informs, a lot of contracts are planned to be signed in the close future with different countries and trained auditors will then be needed to send to those countries, then receiving them back, others will be sent, etc. “Thus we are creating jobs and import finances to Georgia. We are glad to cooperate with all the universities and institutions, we want to present new thinking, new views on standardization to younger generation; because in the end, the result does not belong to me, to my company or someone in particular, it belongs to the people, meaning welfare for the whole society”.

GIC-Georgia has informed Georgian national standardization organization about their activities “They have sent us the letter thanking us for the work we are conducting and expressed readiness for cooperation in any of our projects in case of need. The concrete cooperation has already started. We have asked them to send the invitations to different organizations to the International Conference of Investment & Privatization in Georgia that is going to take place in August 2012. One of the main projects is establishing the first standardization club in Georgia, and during the first period after the club will have been established, the membership will be free of charge and anybody will be able to become the member of the club. We hope our cooperation will continue further”, Dr. Asadi told Georgian Journal.

In the end, one of the final goals of GIC-Georgia, along with the abovementioned, is to upgrade International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (P) membership of Georgia in the 21 Important Technical committees (TC) via Training of Young people and recognizing Georgian national industrial, agricultural products and services at Regional and International level.

Dr. Jahangir Asadi also told Georgia Journal: “We have even sent the letter to the president Saakashvili, telling it would be but pleasure to meet him and discuss the aforementioned issues with him. We are willing to use our minds and experience for the welfare of this country. It is crucial for us that Georgia becomes the member of the EU without any obstacles on its path. American Professor William Deming went to Japan and taught them how to improve service and product quality. So perhaps one day, in several years maybe, in some Georgian street my statue will be seen as well, and people will say about me, this is the man who did his best for upgrading standardization in Georgia. This is of course a dream, but still, I hope the desirable result will be achieved in near future. The main point of quality management is that you establish quality objectives that are achievable. I think, in case of Georgia, this aim can be reached - though not very quickly, but gradually. Our message is, ‘think about standards’. No political or any other context, just scientific attitude and activities”.