Article is from
Electrical & Mechanical Contractor
September 2001, p. 51

Articles & Info

Satisfaction guaranteed

Chris Ottaway reports on the need for customer satisfaction and continual improvement in management systems.

Customer satisfaction and continual improvement are major additions to the new quality management standard ISO 9001: 2000.

These topics appear throughout the standard and not just as an isolated paragraph:

• The process approach diagram at die start of ISO 9001: 2000 shows how customer requirements are fed into the product and how their satisfaction is fed back into the company measurement analysis and improvement cycle.
• Clause 4- 1, general requirements, asks a company to "implement actions necessary to achieve planned results and continual improvement" of processes.
• Clause 5-2, customer focus, states that "top management shall ensure that customer requirements are determined and are met with the aim of enhancing customer satisfaction".
• Clause 5-4-1, quality objectives, states that "top management shall ensure that quality objectives, including those needed to meet requirements for product, are established at relevant functi. s and levels within the organisation. The quality objectives shall be measurable and consistent with the quality policy".
• Clause 5-6, management review, requires "customer feedback and "recommendations for improvement" to be addressed.
• Clause 6- 1, provision of resources, requires the organisation "to enhance customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements".
• Clause 7-2, customer-related processes, has three subparagraphs dedicated specifically to:
  • determination of requirements related to the product;
  • review of requirements related to the product; customer communication.
• Clause 8-1, general, requires the organisation "to continually improve the effectiveness of the quality management system".
• Clause 8-4, analysis of data, requires the organisation to analyse data "relating to customer satisfaction".
• Clause 8-5-1, continual improvement, states that "the organisation shall continually improve the effectiveness of the quality management system through the use of the quality policy, objectives, audit results, analysis of data, corrective and preventive actions and management review".

The changes needed
The philosophy behind the new standard is to be able to measure performance of your organisation with respect to improvement. This can be done on a job-by-job basis or company-wide, depending upon the company size or its type of work.

Remember that, to show improvement, parameters must be measured so that future measurements can show a change. It is no good just saying "we are going to try to improve". Instead, a strategy and target is needed to achieve improvement.

Areas of improvement can be set to suit your individual operation and/or needs and could range from an improvement of tender hit rates through to a reduction of contract defects. General administration functions can also be involved, such as telephone response or letter acknowledgement times.

Of course every objective will need a plan of action to try and reach improvement levels - it is no good making a statement that you'll try to improve an area by 5% without a strategy to achieve this.

This is a positive step with respect to the new standard. How many times have we heard people saying that the introduction of quality assurance has not improved their performance? Now improvement must be shown in order to comply.

Some good work has already been done on this, The Construction Best Practice Programme (CBPP) identifies, publicises and supports the use of improved business and management practices for the construction industry. The CBPP has produced some industry-wide key performance indicators (KPIs) to enable organisations to be measured against targets achieved on all construction activity. KPIs have been produced for the following:

• client satisfaction -product;
• client satisfaction - service;
• defects;
• predictability - cost;
• predictability - time;
• profitability;
• productivity;
• safety;
• construction cost;
• construction time.

Alternatively, companies. can set their own targets to suit a particular contract or operation.

So where does the customer come into this? The performance indicators looked at so far can easily be set internally with access to the right data. However, client feedback must be included.

In the past, we have only been concerned with customer complaints - but what about customer compliments? It is time to use positive feedback. Set up a compliments file and itemise all positive findings in the same way you would do complaints. Ensure that these comments reach the right people. If one department or employee has excelled, let everyone know so that others will learn. Record conversations with clients and feedback any salient points into your organisation.

Many organisations send their clients satisfaction questionnaires. If you do this, choose the questions carefully with a sensible marking criteria and, above all, make sure it goes to the right person, The easier the questionnaire is to complete, the more chance you have of getting it returned.

If we apply ourselves to ISO 9001:2000 correctly, we should see operational benefits from using a management system - that has to be good for us all.

...

Chris Ottaway manages the ECAs free management systems helpline for members (tel: 0 1322 668686). He is md of Ottaway & Associates.