Creating a Sheffield City Region Quality Network

19th March 2019

Whyy? Change is renowned for its insightful and professional networking events, and today's quality networking event was no exception to the rule.

This was the first of many events that will develop and build Sheffield City Region's network of quality professionals. The event was attended by quality managers from across South Yorkshire, and led by Sheffield City Region Quality specialists. It was a chance for attendees to check and challenge their own quality processes and benchmark their journey towards quality excellence. Jack Tsouramanis, Commercial Director at Bureau Veritas, the world's largest quality auditing and certification organisation, talked about the types of standards and the size of the certification market. He told us: -There are more than one million ISO 9001 certified companies in over 170 countries. There are many things that drive companies to achieve certification, and one key reason might be that the bigger companies require their suppliers to be ISO certified. Richard Dolman, quality-focused business consultant, told the group that good customer focus is at the heart of ISO9001. He said: -What you are monitoring an measuring is really important to help you understand your business, and becoming certified has many benefits to your business. [caption id="attachment_39299" align="alignright" width="300"] From left to right: Alan Roddis, Richard Dolman, Jack Tsouramanis, Joanne Elliott, Richard Clegg and Ray Byrne[/caption] Jack Tsouramanis added: -As a quality manager, you can use an auditor as an opportunity to highlight issues that you have been flagging up. You can make sure these issues are being taken seriously. Richard Clegg, systems specialist and Alan Roddis, continuous improvement expert, also delivered insightful talks about the importance of good quality systems and how essential it is to put the customer at the heart of your business. Delegates fed back that they'd like to take the quality conversations further. They would like to go into more depth about quality management systems, look at excellent practice from other organisations, and collaborate to share and learn together. We'll create some future Whyy? Change workshops to meet these delegate needs, so watch this space for more events soon.