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Inchcape Testing Services
Beyond Product and Service
London-based
Inchcape Testing Services understands quality.
A core subsidiary of £8.9 billion
services and marketing group Inchcape pic,
Inchcape Testing Services operates through
355 offices and 156 laboratories in 70 countries.
It provides independent testing, inspection
and certification to the manufacturing,
and oil and petroleum industry, including
many of the world's leading corporations
and governments. "We're in the business
of improving the quality of other people's
products," explains Director of Human
Resources, Keith Hodgson. "So it's
important that we apply quality to ourselves
as well."
Quality initiatives are nothing new to the
£200 million company. Hodgson explains,
"We've put a fair amount of effort,
in the past, into product and service improvement.
What we want to tackle now is quality on
a higher level; improving the energy, impact,
and effectiveness of the complete customer-employee
interface." Inchcape Testing Services
has begun an 18-month quality change process
designed to help the company create closer
partnerships with their customers. The
process will be based on what Inchcape
considers to be the crucial first step—establishing
a baseline of knowledge about what customers
want and how employees are willing and
able to respond. Surveys are based on
the Organizational Alignment Survey,
which will also be used to develop the
appropriate quality improvement processes.
"We sent out a survey with our test
reports that asked a sampling of our 30,000
customers how they felt about the quality
of product, service, and other intangible
offerings that Inchcape Testing Services
provides," says Hodgson. "Then
we asked our 6,000 employees how they
felt about the company's mission and goals,
and how they were currently incorporating
quality into their efforts to meet those
goals."
Hodgson expects the survey data to reveal
numerous opportunities for improvement.
Yet before changes are implemented, Inchcape
will allow a several-month period for
employees to develop a personal understanding
of how they can support the higher quality
standard. Hodgson believes, "What
we want to do is heighten our employees'
level of quality awareness. We want to
inculcate a mindset where every employee
comes to work everyday thinking about
how they can do their job better, both
for internal and external customers.
We
will be able to measure many aspects of
quality in terms of hard data."
Yet quality in the sense of aligning around
the company's mission is something that
I feel you can sense as much as anything
else."
Hodgson expects to implement the Organizational
Alignment Survey on an ongoing basis
to make sure the company's customer partnerships
remain strong. "Once you've established
a baseline of knowledge, it's necessary
to keep monitoring the quality situation,"
he says. "You need to understand whether
what you're doing is generating improvements.
When our entire organization is aligned
in support of our company vision, we will
understand our customers' objectives better
and be able to provide unparalleled value
in the role of a superior supplier partner.
That's our goal." |
