A transport services company provides a whole range of services to railway operators. Its reputation for quality is a valuable asset in its increasingly competitive market.

We are continually looking for innovation in the way we deliver our services because the continuous improvement of our processes is the only way to make our company more efficient, said the company’s CEO.

We use a defined set of criteria to identify critical processes, each of which is allocated a ‘process owner’ by our quality steering committee. This is helped by the company’s ‘process excellence index’

(PEI), which is an indicator of the way a process performs, particularly how it is designed, controlled and improved. The PEI score, which is expressed on a scale of 1 to 100, is calculated by the process owner and registered with the quality department. With this one figure we can measure the cost, reliability and quality of each process so that we can compare performance. If you don’t measure, you can’t improve.

And if you don’t measure in the correct way, how can you know where you are? Employee recognition is also important. Our suggestion scheme is designed to encourage staff to submit ideas that are evaluated and rated. No individual suggestion is finally evaluated until it has been fully implemented.

Where a team of employees puts ideas forward, the score is divided between them, either equally or according to the wishes of the team itself. These employee policies are supported by the company’s training schemes, many of which are designed to ensure all employees are customer-focused.

(a) What seem to be the key elements in this company’s approach to improvement?

(b) Do you think this approach is appropriate for all operations?