'Employees must buy into quality culture'

THE KEY to quality in any organisation is ensuring that employees understand customer requirements and satisfy those requirements at every turn. That's the view of Access Warehousing director Garth Loudon who believes that the starting point is coaching and training employees into a philosophy of quality. "Many companies opt for ISO 9000 accreditation before effecting the cultural change that is necessary to impose a quality management system on the company. We believe in building systems and procedures with our employees' commitment first, and then ISO 9000 is simply the cherry on the top." Commitment In Loudon's view a quality service demands commitment at every level, "from the very top to the very bottom of the company. Our attitude to quality is all-important to our employees who are there to satisfy customer requirements." "Doing it right the first time, every time," is the motto at Access Warehousing. "This means that the understanding of customer requirements must be effectively transferred though the company chain of internal customer-supplier relationships with the common purpose of satisfying the customer. "The ISO 9000 quality management system is an excellent utility that can facilitate the process of satisfying customer requirements. However, without a total commitment to the common purpose along the chain, the quality management system can become a burden to employees, ultimately defeating the objective," he said.