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LOCAL COMPANIES ACHIEVE INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

THE PRESS, 20 SEPTEMBER 2001

The Canterbury region has proven itself a fertile breeding ground for innovative, export-driven commercial operations, ranging from larger players such as Tait Electronics and Invensys Energy Systems to smaller, but no less successful businesses such as AuCom Electronics and the Holliday Group.

To compete successfully on the world stage, these organisations often find they are compelled to meet certain internationally recognised standards such as ISO 9000 certification. "It's simply a pre-requisite for doing business with almost all of our international customers," says Tony Eastwood, Quality Manager with AuCom Electronics Limited.

"We achieved ISO 9001:2000 in January this year, having been certified to the previous standard for about two years. One of our goals with certification is the enhancement of our credibility in the international market place, but also believe the whole ISO 9000 process is a better way to run your whole business.

"We had very good quality control systems in place and a reputation for producing quality product - we design and manufacture soft starters for electric motors, a fairly specialised niche market - but this kind of externally-audited standard does give our product an extra level of credibility, especially with prospective customers," says Mr Eastwood.

"Our software expertise and marketing through global partnerships have led to rapid growth over the last few years. The ISO 9001:2000 focus on 'best business practice" is a great driver to cope with this change and to be an excellent performer."

Dennis Wilkes, Quality Manager Invensys Energy Systems (formerly called Swichtec), agrees and adds: "For us, ISO 9000 certification was primarily about the improvements in business process that come from having documented the overall operation. It is important for export markets as well, but this was not our primary reason for certification."

Providers of secure power supply systems for telecommunications equipment, Invensys Energy Systems employs approximately 400 people in Christchurch and Auckland and is part of a 16,000 employee, 40 location global enterprise.

"I had been heavily involved in the laboratory testing programme developed by the old Telarc New Zealand some years ago, before I joined Invensys, so I was familiar with the concept of using external audits to monitor business performance," says Mr Wilkes.

"The actual process of certification was quite straight forward and we first became certified to ISO 9002 in 1993. Certification has had a number of benefits for our company. We certainly have a clearer understanding of our own processes and can benchmark ourselves against other organisations.

"When an organisation has been certified for some time, and the major improvements in processes have been implemented, the benefits become more staff oriented. Our people have become more involved in the development of the processes. They have gained, and continue to gain, a better understanding of the processes and how we might all contribute to the continual improvement of these processes."

Staff involvement is a key benefit of ISO certification also identified by Phil Holliday of the Holliday Group, a Christchurch-based developer of mobile wireless connected software systems.

"We first achieved certification in 1994 with the aim of differentiating our business in New Zealand as not many software developers had proven they could meet the ISO standards at that time. Since then, with the growth of our international markets, the perceived benefits in terms of customer satisfaction are relatively small as all our customers simply expect us to be ISO 9000 certified. The biggest benefits nowadays are for our staff; the belief that the company takes quality seriously and they are involved in the continuous process of business improvement."

Roger Atkinson, Group Quality Manager for Tait Electronics is another senior manager who endorses the multiple benefits of becoming certified to ISO 9000 series standards.

"When I first joined Tait in the early 90's, the company was growing at an enormous rate and there was a need to formalise the management systems. I had been a member of the Standards committee which originally adopted ISO 9000 for use in New Zealand and had been involved as an auditor in some of Telarc's first certifications," says Mr Atkinson. "Subsequent experience in implementing ISO 9000 management systems within the Fletcher group of companies led to my joining Tait Electronics to head up the certification process here."

"As the recognition for ISO 9000 grew internationally and, given a major proportion of our radio communications products were being exported, we found that a number of important customers were starting to include ISO 9000 certification as a requirement in their tender documents.

"The process took about two years, in which time the business had nearly doubled in size. It certainly required a culture change and was quite difficult at the time.

"There were a number of benefits for the organisation as a result of having achieved ISO 9001 in 1994, including recognition by our peers and customers. Our staff got to understand more clearly what was expected of them and there was greater recognition of their roles within the organisation. Our customers benefited through the assurance that they were dealing with a company which had met an externally-audited set of recognised management standards."

Gary Briggs is a client manager with Telarc Limited's Christchurch office. The Royal New Zealand Airforce-trained electronics technician says the concept of utilising a third party accredited assessment body for management system audits, such as ISO 9001:2000, is one of the key factors for success.

"Canterbury certainly has produced more than its fair share of entrepreneurial, innovative people who have established major businesses, businesses that have grown to become some of our greatest success stories. The high level of recognition around the world for the ISO 9000 standards will have frequently enabled these companies to get their foot in the door with key international clients," says Mr Briggs. "But the achievement of certain standards through third party assessment processes should not be overlooked as a valuable goal for companies primarily focussed on the local market."

Having joined the ranks of ISO 9000 certification in July this year, Nanette Russell of Connetics Limited says the company is still reaping the rewards of recognition from customers for their achievement.

Ms Russell is the Supply and Distribution Manager for Connetics, which provides contract services for utility networks throughout New Zealand, and says the company's focus on quality has always been a critical success factor for the business.

"We knew that external, internationally recognised certification would be the best way to acknowledge this focus on quality and give us a powerful tool for future work. Although we don't have the same pressures faced by many exporters, many of our major customers indicated a preference for an externally recognised quality system and often contracts will state ISO 9000 certification as a requirement.

"The certification process, in terms of creating the quality manual to 'sit above' and tie together existing documents was time consuming but quite rewarding. Through the process, we found some areas where procedural improvements could be made and found areas of contradicting or overlapping instructions needing clarification. The process was beneficial and we all learned from it."

The revision of the ISO 9000 series two years ago into the ISO 9001:2000 standards has been particularly helpful according to Roger Atkinson of Tait Electronics.

"The revised standard's emphasis on customer focus and management's role in objective-setting, planning, performance measurement and continuous improvement works very well in terms of our own business processes. It's more realistic in terms of the standard now being a better fit with our processes, rather than having to tailor our systems to meet its requirements. And, it helps us focus on the things that we need to be doing to help our business grow successfully," says Mr Atkinson.

"Our Christchurch head office and Australian, Hong Kong and North American subsidiaries have already attained the revised standard and we're working with our local, European and Singaporean sales and service subsidiaries to achieve their updated certification by the end of this year. Ongoing review and improvement of our processes continues to deliver significant benefits across many facets of the business."

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