ISO 9000 family helps in continuous improvement of organizations in the field of software quality management. British textile companies have realized the importance of ISO 9000, and they have started implementing procedures to maintain their competitiveness in the global markets for their export. Parkland Manufacturing was amongst the first company in the British textile industry to implement this quality standard.
Parkland had a view that this standard can improve the quality of its products, and it can control the overall cost of the organization through updates in the company’s software. The company’s software was updated in each department, including weaving, dyeing, and scouring for compatibility. Parkland witnessed a cultural change in the organization, and even the lower level management people became involved and responsible for the quality (Huang, 2000). Following benefits were resulted from the situation:
- Quality was defined to meet user’ demand and wishes.
- A more structured problem-solving approach was formed, which linked up all departments (cross-functional).
- As a result, quality assurance department was created, which was responsible for incoming and outgoing material inspections.
- The software update also helped the company to monitor customer complaints and reply to customers instantly for their queries.
It is important that employees should adhere to the ISO standards while performing their specific tasks because if they do not adhere to these policies, then the company might not be able to achieve its desired outcome. In case, a company updates its software system to maintain records of its customers and inventory for quality management and its employees are not interested in the feedback provided by the software then the ISO standards would be of no use. ISO standards have become a global trend, which is critical to the success of organizations; therefore, compliance from each employee is mandatory(Heizer, Render, & Rajashekhar, 2008).
Training should be provided to a manager, who refuses to enforce the standardized process and inform employees of the importance of those policies for the success of the organization. Without acceptance and recognition by managers, it is not possible to attain the desired outcome of the ISO standards. Mostly, the resistance is from managers is due to the change process in the organization, which is why they create hurdles in the way of the organization to implement the change. Managers must, therefore, be trained efficiently to adopt certain changes for business success.
Reference List
Heizer, J., Render, B., & Rajashekhar, J. (2008). Operations Management. New Delhi: Pearson.
Huang, C. (2000). Implementation of ISO 9000 in A British Textile Mill. Taiwan: National Taipei University of Technology.