For many companies, their ISO 9001:2000 certification for quality management represents nothing but a mere requirement to fulfill in order to pre-qualify for certain tenders. They may or may not apply their QA Manual, and if they do, they apply it without real consideration for the spirit embodied by the ISO standards.
What sets Combined Group apart from these companies is the top management’s deep belief in, and total commitment to, quality management that has permeated down to the most junior of positions within the company, thereby creating a veritable culture of quality at CGC.
In order to truly benefit from being ISO certified, a company has to come to the realization that quality management is not achieved by simply documenting work methods and procedures and subsequently blindly adhering to them. A true quality management system must include built in tools allowing for, in fact necessitating, continual and continuous improvement. Statistics must be gathered and analysis performed relevant to all systems and subsystems within the company to check for efficiency and hence the possibilities for development. Systems must be assessed periodically to check for lasting suitability given the dynamic and ever-changing nature of business and given the company’s steady expansion.
This is what a true culture of quality entails: a belief that quality management is a living and breathing concept that must inherently include methods allowing it to evolve with the changing requirements of the company, and, requiring it to perpetually improve, even if in small incremental steps, the efficiency and effectiveness of the policies and procedures it documents.
A company with a culture of quality must also recognize that quality management is the ultimate responsibility of every employee in the company and that the Quality Management Section is but a facilitator and assistant in the process of change and improvement and not the sole, or even primary, party concerned with that change.
A company with a culture of quality accepts and encourages the compliance audits performed, whether internally or externally, and, in fact, encourages and looks forward to receiving opportunities for improvement (OFIs) in order to act on them and take that additional step forward.
Finally, a company with a culture of quality acknowledges that sitting still to preserve the status quo is a false concept. In order to preserve the status quo, a company must evolve and improve at the same rate of its fastest evolving competitor; otherwise, by comparison, it is in retrograde motion.
This is our culture of quality. This is CGC.
Follow the link below to visit the Quality Management Department in:
- Kuwait