PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT THROUGH QUALITY MANAGEMENT

APAA believes that quality is a necessary and integral part of any improvement program. An organisation that can meet the criteria for Quality Certification is already measuring itself against a vast population of dissimilar companies.

In addition, quality certification is particularly suitable for organisations where strict adherence to procedure is essential. In many safety oriented industries, the value of quality certification to the ISO9000:2000 Standard is recognised as invaluable. This is also a well- recognised step for many organisations to take before they look to external partners for more conventional benchmarking projects.

The Independent Standards we use are:-

The European Foundation Quality Model (EFQM)

Drivers:-
Customers’ views and satisfaction

Themes:-
Leadership, culture, teamwork

Objectives:-
Organisation wide improvements

Results are measured against best practice in all organisations using the Model.

The ISO 9000 Approach

Drivers:-
Define processes and procedures and audit consistency and adherence

Themes:-
Reliability (Drive out variability in activities and performance)

Objectives
:-
Demonstrate adherence to norms and achievement of reliability

Develop a culture of continuous improvement


Results are audited by independent certifying organisations.

We find that a suitable combination of these benchmarking and quality approaches provides useful measures leading to substantial improvements in all functions.