AN ISO certificate is more than merely a certificate to hang on the wall. Use it to improve the standard of your internal operations, and it becomes a valuable asset to your business and to your clients, says Roland Naidoo, managing director of inland haulage specialists Rail Road Africa. “Frankly, the people outside your business seldom take real cognisance of the fact that you are ISO certified,” he says. “It means little to most who are not associated with it. But when used as a vehicle to add discipline value to your own staff, it provides a clear vision of where you are lacking and what measures need to be taken to improve your service levels.” It is one of the most important performance measurement processes, and by applying it constantly as an auditing move it keeps an organisation well in tune, he says. “It is not only a tool to be used in this respect, but also one around which other internal tools can be built. Service level agreements are enhanced when staff is trained in the manner an ISO certificate indicates. “You have to take it seriously. Yes, it costs money and time, but our ISO-2000 certificate has proved its worth over and over again. We now have a quality manager assigned to visit our branches throughout the country and check that service levels are keeping abreast of the requirements. “Right now we are going through an internal audit to ensure we are living the standard. Adequate training is provided in any area where a weakness may emerge. “Recently I took our entire national management to a meeting for a full weekend where we focused on our performances as a whole. Our target is to be the number one inter-modal service provider in the country and we need the tools to achieve that goal. This is the way to do it.”
