ASPIRE is a training program designed to equip university administrative staff with the necessary knowledge, mindset, and skills in developing and implementing a Quality Management System (QMS) that will help their organization attain improved and efficient operations, sustained culture of innovations, customer-driven delivery of services, and empowered human resources. For UPM, the program complemented their recent certification against ISO 9001:2018 and will prepare them for their validation visit this year. This also shows the university management’s commitment to quality and improve their internal processes for their stakeholders.

The cohort was composed of 53 participants from the different offices across UPM and five members of the UPD QAO. They formed eleven groups and were assigned a category of administrative functions from which they will select a specific workflow as their main topic for the training. UP Diliman Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research professors UPD QAO Director Prof. Aura C. Matias, PhD., UPD Vice-Chancellor for Administration Asst. Prof. Adeline A. Pacia, and Asst. Prof. Benette P. Custodio, together with UP NEC University Extension Specialist Mr. Pepito C. Dizon, served as resource persons and guided the participants as they went through the process of developing, revising, and suggesting improvements in their internal process workflows.