DUBAI WE LEARN

Benchmarking Dubai - Qimpro

Benchmarking for Best Practices

ISO 9001 is the Foundation

Once upon a time we were introduced to Quality Management Systems. ISO 9001 Quality Standard to be precise.

Quality Management is about the Juran Trilogy:

  • Quality Planning: To set the standard for our processes, based on customer needs
  • Quality Control: To maintain the standard of our processes
  • Quality Improvement: To challenge the standard for breakthrough performances of our processes.

Most organizations stopped their Quality Journey after adopting the ISO 9001 Quality Standard. After all, their systems were periodically audited by internal and external auditors. Besides, they now had their Quality Controls firmly in place.

Organizations flashed on billboards that they had been “awarded” an ISO 9001 Quality Certification. As a record, India has amongst the most ISO 9001 Certified organizations in the world. By contrast, Japan has the least.

Unfortunately, customers saw no difference in the quality of outputs from Indian ISO Certified organizations. The only difference was that they “consistently” made their mistakes!

If only organizations had first studied the ISO 9003 which provided guidelines for understanding ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems.

Quality Improvement must be a Habit

Then came the tsunami of Six Sigma for Quality Improvement. Six Sigma is a brilliant tool for high volume production. For normal organizations Six Sigma is too sophisticated. There are simpler alternatives for solving chronic problems. Example: Problem Solving Rx.

Solving chronic problems in processes delivers, as a by-product, a reduction in Cost Of Poor Quality (COPQ). This saving goes straight to the bottom-line of the Profit & Loss Statement.

The COPQ in private sector organizations is approximately 30% of total costs. Much higher than the profit.

The COPQ in governmental organizations is higher than 30% of total costs. This is traceable to the bureaucratic nature of administrative processes.

Dubai We Learn

We are now in an era where Benchmarking is centre stage…. Benchmarking for disruptive innovative change in processes. Further, Benchmarking is considered a very powerful tool for organizational learning and knowledge sharing.

In 2015, the Dubai Government Excellence Programme (DGEP) launched the Dubai We Learn initiative as a platform to assist government entities to develop an organizational learning culture which would support innovation, and a citizen focussed approach for delivering government services.

All 37 government entities in Dubai participated. The four objectives of the programme were:

  • Promote a culture of organizational learning in the government sector in Dubai
  • Improve government performance to increase the satisfaction and happiness of all stakeholders
  • Grow human resources training and capacity building
  • Enhance Dubai’s image as an international hub.

During the course of the metamorphosis, Dubai benchmarked organizations in Australia, Bahrain, China, Ireland, Singapore, South Korea, USA, UK and the UAE. They learned numerous Best Practices and adapted the same for the Dubai culture.

Wow! Wish we had more such governments!

This DGEP initiative was launched in co-operation with Dr Robin Mann, Head of the Centre for Organizational Excellence Research, Massey University, New Zealand. Dr Mann is also the Chairman of the Global Benchmarking Network.

Random Thoughts

  1. Does auditing your financial management system assure Profit?
  2. Does auditing your quality management system assure Customer Satisfaction?
  3. Why is COPQ ignored by the Board of Directors in most organizations?
  4. Will Mumbai benchmark Dubai for governmental Best Practices?





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