East of Scotland Branch Meeting, Tuesday 7 February 2006, Napier University

Host: Ron Masson, Subject Group Leader, School of Management.

Subject: Presentation of final year dissertations by Graduate Quality Students

The meeting took the form of three presentations by graduate members of the Napier quality course. The idea of the evening was to give young quality students an idea of what TQM and IQA were all about and hopefully get some new members.

The audience was made up of branch members and fellow classmates of the graduates. The judges were branch members Brian Murray, Educational Correspondent, Jenny Glover, Committee Member and Mr. Ron Masson. The Branch had obtained book tokens to the value of £150 for prizes. The students were allowed approximately 15-20 minutes for their presentations which were PowerPoint format.

“ISO14001 in Scotland; Motives, Implementation and Benefits.”

The first speaker was Kenny Clarke whose topic was: “ISO14001 in Scotland; Motives, Implementation and Benefits.” He commenced with a brief history of ISO14001 and indicated that the UK had 5500 certificates for same issued which was second only to Japan with 134166 certificates. His research aims were the motivation and implementation factors, the benefits gained by organizations via ISO14401 certification and comparisons with other studies conducted in other countries.

His research method was a postal survey to 130 BSI certified companies in Scotland which gave a 43% response rate. The respondents were 43% manufacturing, 25% service, 11% construction, 11% recycling and others. Implementation took up to 11months for 28%. A further 67% of companies took 12-23 months for implementation with the remaining 5% taking 24-35 months.

The important resulting benefits were environmental improvements, improved corporate image, improved relations with authorities and reduced waste. The important motives reported by the organizations in obtaining ISO 14001 certification were environmental improvements, improved corporate image, customer pressure and corporate directive. The two top implementation factors which took the most effort were: awareness of regulatory requirements and identifying aspects and impacts of the standard.

Comparisons with similar surveys in Sweden and the Far East showed similar results with high levels of effort being required for identification of aspects, training and documentation. The conclusions were that ISO14001 does provide business value benefits. Recommendations for further research included benefits to the environment and the nature of the customer voice.

“Evaluation of EFQM Model in Fife Council”

The next speaker was Morag Boyter from Fife Council whose topic was “Evaluation of EFQM Model in Fife Council”. The main thrust behind the EFQM Public Sector Model came from the EC directives on Tendering and the required awareness of “Best Value”. Her research aims were to: investigate how embedded the EFQM model is within the performance and planning culture of Fife Council; identify the strengths and weaknesses of the self-awareness framework used within Fife Council and investigate the long term benefits of the model as Fife Council have been using EFQM for over five years. Her special area of interest was the Housing Function.

The reasons for adopting EFQM included the consolidation of the new authority, a modernising government, Best Value agenda and efficiency. The process was started with desk top assessments for most employees followed by the formation of a Council EFQM Team with trained Assessors backed up by Lloyd consultants. This was followed by a programme of Level 2 assessments carried out by trained assessors who spent a week in each Service interviewing staff at all levels and customers.

The results of the Self Assessment Framework showed that many of the results were perception based and a lack of time had been allocated to the results. The final Reports were long and confusing with the feedback to Management Teams being fraught with problems. The findings of the Assessor surveys indicated that there was clear leadership from Senior Management but in the links to Service Plans, whilst there was clear guidance and framework, there were issues around the links to final reports and the process of Monitoring Actions was not clear.

The Long Term Benefits were an 80% take up within Council Services and from 2001 to 2004 there were increased scores in Policy and Strategy, partnership and resources, Key Performance Results and Customer results.

The main conclusions were that Action Planning should be improved with clear monitoring frameworks established within services. The assessment process should be improved with more focus on results which are evidence based. Within Fife Council, the Housing Function was found to be “ahead of the game” and showed improvement. If this is due to EFQM, the True Test will be through external regulation of the Housing Function.

Benchmarking in NHS Scotland

The final presentation was by Scott Walker whose topic was: Benchmarking in NHS Scotland: Lessons learned from other NHS, private and public sector organisations. The overall aim was to understand benchmarking activities undertaken in both the public and private sectors (NHS procurement organizations and NHSS Health Boards) and determine how they can be applied to NHS NSS Scottish Healthcare Supplies. Scott started with the history and background to benchmarking and indicated that, outwith the manufacturing sector, benchmarking is carried out in HRM departments, airport authorities, higher education authorities, National Health Service, Local Government and the private sector.

A questionnaire was devised using benefits and perceived problems. The benefits were: defining customer requirements, establishing effective goals and objectives, being competitive and industry best practice. The problems were: lack of focus, cost implications and intellectual law issues. The questionnaires were sent to the three Nation Organizations (Scotland, Wales and N.I.) ant specific departments in the 16 Scottish Health Boards: Estates/Facilities, Supplies/Procurement, Podiatry/ theatre/ Sterile Services and Pharmacy.

Scott had a response rate of 31% and, in NHS Scotland, 32% of respondents had carried out Benchmarking in the last three years compared with 79% of local government organizations. Scott produced many more results which can be best condensed and summed up in the Conclusions.

The Conclusions indicated that NHS Home Nation procurement organizations use Price Benchmarking to demonstrate value for money whereas NHSS Health Boards use Process Benchmarking to identify options for improvement. Benchmarking activities being carried out in NHS Scotland are disjointed across services/health boards. Benchmarking is not a great measure of customer satisfaction in the public sector.

The Recommendations were that there should be the formation of an NHS Scotland benchmarking group which should pursue further benchmarking opportunities with Quality Scotland. It was further recommended that communications should be developed with local government bodies to determine possible benchmarking opportunities.

Scott finished his presentation by indicating that an initial meeting had taken place by the newly formed NHS Scotland Benchmarking Group which had carried out an independent Benchmarking Pilot in NHS Scotland. This pilot benchmarked Customer Satisfaction and was pursuing Employee Satisfaction Benchmarking. A major organizational change is underway but results on all these are still pending.

Summary

The trio of judges had considered the following points for the presentations: content, continuity, visual displays, body language and eye contact by the presenters. Because of the amount of work which had gone into the presentations, it was decided to split the book vouchers equally between the presenters. It was then left to Tom Candlish, Chairman of EoS branch to give the vote of thanks and finish with a comment which he had overheard that, “It was wonderful to hear young people talking enthusiastically about Quality!”

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East of Scotland Branch Meeting, Tuesday 15 November 2005, MGt Ltd, Kirkcaldy

Host: Alistair Booth, Staff Retention and Development Officer.

Subject: Quality in Business Outsourcing Services

It was emphasised from the outset, that MGt are not a tele-sales call centre but offer service and technical facilities to clients on an inbound call basis only. Most of their clients are media based such as Setanta and Top up TV who rely on MGt to facilitate requests from customers for connection or technical services. They do have a separate call centre for an insurance group but, again, all calls are incoming. These are occasioned either by mail shots, TV ads etc. for new business or existing customers phoning up for information or to make an insurance claim.

The firm was started by two local businessmen in 1998 and they currently employ 950 staff in Fife. Great emphasis is placed on staff training as they employ all the staff and do not use any agency personnel. Each recruit is allocated to a particular project and is put into a team with a team leader who trains the group in that particular client’s business. This results in structured training over a period of months. They operate from 8am to 4am, obviously using shift work which seems to suit the wide variety of staff ranging in age from 16 to 74! They are employing an increasing number of retired people because they can work for one, two or three days a week,” which helps with the holidays’ kitty”.

Certainly, most of their employees are in the 18-30 age range and are recruited through local papers and radio and Careers Offices in the local Colleges. They design their own software programmes to suit each client’s needs. However, they have problems getting software engineers as, even offering very competitive salaries; they cannot persuade software engineering graduates to commute from Edinburgh to Kirkcaldy. Their general staff turnover is 7% per month which compares very favourably with the average call centre.

Customer satisfaction is measured in a number of ways. Incoming customers can be asked to fill in either an on-line survey form or answer a few questions at the end of the call. Their clients can have Customer Managers who oversee a large event such as a football Cup Final or Old Firm game. This gives them accurate figures on the number of callers which can be related to marketing and advertising.

To provide the best service, they have an IT control room which has technicians available during all operating hours. They have up-to-date protection for power surges and their own back-up generators for power outages. With a view to future business, they are currently going for accreditation with the Contact Centre Association (CCA).

As Chairman Tom Candlish said in his summation at the end of the visit, we learnt a surprising amount about a modern growth service industry and their efforts to provide a quality service.

East of Scotland Branch Meeting, Tuesday 18 October 2005, King Malcolm Hotel, Dumfermline.

Speaker, Jayne Day, Service Delivery Manager and Stuart Barclay, IMS Manager of Alfred McAlpine Business Services.

Subject: Making a difference, tailoring IT services for specific business needs.

Alfred McAlpine provide services ranging from putting roads into construction sites to turnkey projects involving the fitting out and completion of buildings. They have been doing this from 1911 and the one division which has expanded the most recently has been the Business Service Division.

The Business Service Division provides end-to-end solutions for IT setups in organizations mainly in the SME sector. McAlpine started in IT business about 15 years ago and in 2004, the IT Service Management Division was formed. Jayne, as the Service Delivery Manager indicated that their primary task is to eliminate the “black hole” which often exists in projects when trying for completion.

The Division uses the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) version 2 which enables them to map the best practice process. Jayne’s main topic was how they manage to fill the various “gaps” which appear from the start of the project to the handover to “live service”. At the start of a project, it is often apparent that there is a need for some form of process before any progress can be made. Jayne has the frequent task of co-ordinating the logistics of the various IT teams and ensuring that the Project Manager on each site has an overview of that project. One major area of management which Jayne found lacking at the beginning of her service was that billing was not always updated. This area has been tightened up which obviously aids profitability

There is always a gap during the project life cycle between their offering a limited warranty and acceptance into service. This is taken care of by the Service Level Agreement (SLA) which is negotiated separately for every project as every customer has individual requirements. To aid the Project team and the customer, McAlpine have a comprehensive help desk arrangement which satisfies ISO15000..

At the end of the presentation, Chairman Tom Candlish indicated that it was always a pleasure to hear how people in diverse areas of operation can overcome problems and pass on their experiences to an appreciative audience.

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East of Scotland Branch Meeting, Tuesday 13 September 2005, King Malcolm Hotel, Dumfermline.

Speaker, Nigel Hendry, Quality and Environmental Manager, Morrison PLC and Property Services Manager, Advansa International

Subject: Comparison of Integrated Management Systems between a PLC and a SME

Can IMS work for a large international business as well as a SME? This September meeting welcomed Nigel Hendry who set out to prove just this. As well as his “day” job as Quality and Environmental Manager for the large Scottish construction company Morrison, Nigel also runs a “one-stop” company, Advansa International, which enables UK residents to easily purchase a plot of land abroad and have a fully serviced house built on it or purchase a completed property.

Nigel started by outlining the step-by-step procedures which Morrison have installed for taking customer requirements through estimating, construction to handover with post-build maintenance. They are aided in this by a Material, Plant, and Subcontract Procurement Diagram which shows all the necessary steps and, more importantly, the necessary quality checks and signed documentation which are required before various parts of a project can be signed off and progress made to the next phase.

Morrison have an overall quality system which starts at the top with their Policy and then cascades down through the usual Manual, Procedures, Work Instructions and, finally, Records and References. Continual Improvement is stressed throughout and Performance Indicators are used. The main Criterion of the Test and Inspection Procedures is “Confirming work meets specification” with appropriate measures for selection of test personnel and non-conformance.

Nigel then contrasted the scale of operations of Morrison with Advansa and the IMS of the latter. Morrison have over 1000 staff and works plus sub-contractors whereas Advansa have two. However, Advansa starts with Customer requirements and a Customer Pre-qualifying checklist. Nigel was at pains to point out that they had no hesitation in informing prospective clients if they had insufficient funding and called a halt there.

Following on from the pre-qualifying, Advansa arranged flights and hotels for prospective buyers to view locations and property. Once the customer has made their selection, Advansa use their locally approved Spanish solicitors for conveyancing and financial dealings. Advansa also take care of the contracts for after-care maintenance. If a property is to be built, all matters dealing with land, builders, suppliers etc is taken care of by selected out-sourcing companies who have given Advansa satisfactory service over a number of years.

Nigel pointed out that Morrison out-source about 67% and Advansa about 93% but Advansa still have a similar albeit simpler quality system like Morrison. The hardest part about out-sourcing is letting go control to different cultures and philosophies. You become the customer and you must define your requirements in writing and continually monitor progress.

Nigel concluded by emphasising the continual improvement message and the Q&A session was enlivened by discussion on different interpretations of standards abroad which added to the learning experience of the evening.

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