Abstract
M.Comm.
Throughout the world, service organisations and the service element of
production orientated organisations are playing an increasingly important role.
A service is distinguished from other products in that it is intangible. An
organisation providing a service, often faces the problem that the service delivery
fails at the interface between the organisation and its customer. Perceptions of
bad service or bad products stay with organisations for many years and for this
reason it is important that organisations ensure that the services or products
which reach their customers, are of a good quality.
The International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) has set up the ISO 9000
Series as a set of standards which can be used by organisations to assure their
customers, both internally and externally, that the organisation will consistently
meet their requirements. The ISO 9000 Series is very popular in Europe and is
becoming increasingly popular in the United States of America. Many companies
are today urging, or even coercing, suppliers to adopt ISO 9000. ISO 9000, if
successfully implemented, leads to certification awarded by a certification body,
attesting that the organisation has met the quality management requirements
determined by the ISO. The ISO standards do not tell the organisation how to
design or built a service or product but provide a framework for the organisation
to test its services or products, train employees, keep records and fix or prevent
defects.
However, it should assist with the implementation of Total Quality Management
(TQM) because it provides a documented basis of the organisation's TQM
system.
The ISO 9000 Series enables the organisation which wishes to implement such
a system to either adopt a stakeholder motivated or a management motivated
approach. If the management motivated approach is adopted, management
implements a total quality management system into the organisation with the view
of continuously improving processes. It then uses the guidelines contained in
ISO 9000-1 and the various parts of ISO 9004 to assist them in the
implementation of the system.
The control of services is as important as the control of manufactured products.
In a service-orientated approach a customer is always placed first and the
services must be designed in such a way that they meet customer expectations.
Customer expectations must be clearly identified through proper research and
the services must be designed to meet identified needs. However, the services
must also be delivered in such a way that they do not fail at the interface between
customer and organisation. For this reason, any organisation involved in service
rendering must ensure that its staff are properly trained to ensure that the service
delivered to the customer meets his/her requirements.
To ensure that customer requirements are met, an organisation can develop an
assurance system based on the elements contained in ISO 9001, ISO 9002 or
ISO 9003 (customer motivated approach). The organisation must decide which
of these international standards applies to its products or services and choose the
applicable one.
To ensure that a consistently high quality product or service is supplied to
customers, a quality management system must be implemented and documented
in a quality manual, work indicators, quality plans and quality procedures. This
document then forms the basis for certification by a certification body.
The current set of ISO 9000 standards is to be replaced in the year 2000. Draft
standards have been issued, replacing the current ISO 8402, ISO 9000, ISO
9001, ISO 9002, ISO 9003 and the various parts of ISO 9004 into three
standards, namely ISO 9000:1998, ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 9004:2000. All these
standards adopt a process approach and four quality management processes are
identified, namely:
management responsibility;
resource management;
process management; and
measurement and analysis improvements.
Although ISO 9000 can assist with the implementation and control of a quality
management system and thereby help to achieve TQM, it is only a system. Any
system is driven by people and the people in the organisation must take
ownership of the quality system implemented in the organisation. To do so they
must become quality people and this they can only become if they make quality
part of their personal lives. Staff should adopt a personal excellence model for
self-development and management should implement a process whereby staff
make quality part of their personal lifes. To ensure that this is done management
will have to spent time, effort and money on staff development, including the
adoption of a mentoring, rather than a pure training, approach.