Isabelle
Quality Consultant

Quality through services

Quality wasn't something I fell into when I was young, far from it, but it's now something I think about every working day.

When I talk about Quality, I mean the ISO 9001 v 2008 standard.

I don't know exactly how or who introduced it to the CELLA Group head office in 2003.

In fact, what did we know about it in the Technical Department’s development team, to which I belong ? A team of Quality Consultants arrived and were determined to help us obtain Certification, which became the main concern of our Quality meetings and our Documentary Management System, which grew thanks to a plethora of new documents. A number of buzzwords could be heard in the corridors at that time: “ Process ”, “ Indicators ”, “ Quality Manual ”, “ Continuous improvement ” etc.

Once we obtained certification, there was no great revolution in the work of our developers; we continued to use the methods we had always used before certification. And we had the impression that there were many more documents to deal with. In fact what Quality meant to us was more paperwork!

But the cause of Quality gradually won me over,

by little details, on a daily basis. Just to give you one example: a meeting in which I took part as a developer-analyst with one of our clients, for whom we were producing a standard share management application. At the beginning of this meeting, a supplier from another service company told me that his IT services Company had also bid for the project but when he saw the quality of the documents we had provided and how we were organised, he understood why we had been chosen.

I then had the opportunity to join the internal audit team which, as its name implies, is responsible for regular audits of the Quality management system. And of course audit means controlling the processes in question...
Our team is 100% female : three women who regularly patrol the premises meeting all the departments, including the development team of course.

Thanks to these audits, Quality has infected the whole of the open-space area occupied by the development team. I get called nicknames such as “ Mama ISO ” or “ Isa ISO ” and hear comments like " You see, I've done that for Quality ".
The Quality Manager at another company told me that it really annoyed him when people said things like that to him. But I actually find it very positive, as it means that everyone is involved and thinking about it.

Finally, the whole technical team has supported and pushed the Quality system forward, by contributing ideas on the procedures and documents, putting in place tools to make Quality management easier, and by communicating with clients. It has to be said, however, that the Management team was less involved and a little distanced from it, although still cooperative and transparent during the audits.

Everyone is involved now.
This is clear during our audits of our own quality management system, as everyone responds to questions in a cooperative and totally honest manner, improvements are suggested, our " Quality ideas box " is full of comments, and Management is now planning to seek certification for new activities. Our Clients are very satisfied with our system.
We also provide Quality services to some of our clients, a service that members of the Technical team are able to provide, thanks to the opportunity we have had to become involved.

Initiated from the top and supported from the bottom, Quality is now everyone’s business throughout the CELLA Group.