The road to quality management in Kuwait started in January 2003 when the company's top management began its quest to achieve the recognition the company deserved by seeking the ISO9001:2000 certification. With establishments of the Quality Management Department, the quest began in earnest.
The journey was arduous and the amount of effort expended was monumental. The Quality Management Department worked very closely with all other departments and sections in the company, helping them document their procedures, formalize and unify their forms and gather and collate all the information into a comprehensive and clear Quality Assurance Manual.
A series of Quality Management awareness courses were conducted for over 500 people and the road to the creation of a corporate culture of quality was started.
All this effort culminated, as it was bound to, in CGC Kuwait being awarded the ISO9001:2000 certification in January of 2004 from the very first audit and without any comment. Since then, the company never looked back.
The Quality Management Department began a continuous quality management training program. They also developed special orientation courses for new employees without which no new employee can begin his official duties. Refresher courses for senior management were initiated and quality management training became a foundation of the company's success.
Upon being awarded the ISO certification, the Quality Management Department began a thorough and perpetual compliance audit program. The program for scheduled audits covering all aspects and divisions of the company is devised at the end of every year and is approved by the Managing Director for the entire year to follow. In addition to the scheduled audit program, the Quality Management Department further conducts unscheduled spot audits to ensure overall employee compliance with the systems and subsystems in place. Any cases of non-conformity or for opportunities for improvement are clearly documented and the department/section/employee concerned is required to take the necessary corrective actions to ensure subsequent compliance or to act on the improvement opportunity as the case may be.
Specifically with regard to opportunities for improvement, the Quality Management Department conducts regular customer satisfaction surveys and management reviews. It records collected statistics and analyzes the findings in an effort to probe the ongoing efficiency and effectiveness of the systems in place and to make recommendations for possible improvements and development within the company.
In this way, the entire staff is proactively engaged in bettering the company and its work methods, with initiative being taken at every employment level. This is how every employee feels he has an important stake in seeing the company prosper. Every employee feels empowered because his/her ideas are being listened to and acted upon.
The company, at its own request, has two annual external audits performed on it, instead of the customary one, and all findings are followed up on by the Quality Management Department.
Finally, the Quality Management Department in Kuwait supports all other companies within the CGC group and compliance audits are launched out of Kuwait to the different countries of operation.
Get in touch with Kuwait's Quality Management Department: Mail US