Mohamed Zairi(2005) defines the Quality management systems review panel of senior managers, led by the Quality Director, meets regularly to review achievements in terms of business excellence.

V Materials and Methods:-

A survey was organized with a target group of 100 contractors from UAE as responders. This included Mechanical , Electrical and Civil Contractors.

The survey was organized through a formal gathering of key staff from these contracting organizations. The important areas were discussed and their responses were reckoned to arrive at the survey.

Data Analysis:

1. Customer Satisfaction: 56% of organizations stated that they maintain the same level of customer satisfaction before and after ISO Certification. 24% organizations were positive to improve their customer satisfaction, as a result of implementing ISO 9001 System. 20% of organizations did not agree on any such improvement.

2. Continual Improvements: 28% of respondents had a formal account of the continual improvements after ISO certification. 44% respondents felt improvements, but they were not sure whether it was because of ISO QMS and also they did not have any quantified figures behind such improvements.

28% organizations denied of any continual improvements after ISO certification.

3. Brand Image and Ease of Marketing: 60% of respondents were positive to agree that their brand image and ease of marketing were improved after getting certified to ISO 9001. Respondents with no change in this brand image and marketing before and after certification was 40%

4. Internal Audits: 32% of respondents revealed that their internal audit process was adding value to their business, 8% of respondents had been neutral whereas 60% organizations denied to agree on any value addition by internal audits.

5. Linking ISO with Business Strategy: 48% of respondents gave a shocking reply that the ISO model in their organization had no interface to Strategy and vice versa. 32% of respondents stayed neutral by accepting there was a strategy but unaware of how it was linked to systems. 20% respondents felt positively that their strategy and systems were linked well each other.

6. Documentation Issues: 52% of responded organization felt that the documents volume increased after ISO certification, 36% felt the same volume of documentation before and after certification where as 12% organizations were happy to streamline and reduce the paperwork after ISO certification.

7. Cultural and Behavioral Issues: 52% of organizations revealed it was very difficult to maintain the System culture and team relationships when the data and information need to be shared within the organization and people need to work as a team. 16% felt a refined culture and behavior in the organization since ISO certification. 32% remained neutral and did not comment anything.

8. Management Commitment: 32% of the respondents revealed a positive commitment from their top management, 52% did not agree on the adequate commitment by top management. 16% of organizations did not have any comments.

9. Motivation and Recognition: Even though most organizations had a HR mechanism for promotions, increments, etc 64% organizations felt the staff role in ISO system and achievements were not the basis for recognition, but the sales and operational performance only. 24% respondents were happy to get motivated and recognized for their contribution related to Quality improvements. 12% of respondents were neutral.

10. Bureaucracy in Systems: 56% of respondents feel the necessity to re-engineer their end to end processes and eliminate non-value adding processes. 24% respondents had no bureaucracy issues. 20% of them had no comments.

11. Customization: 52% of organizations responded as their system, policies and objectives were not tailored to suit their business and seemed so generic.

44% organizations claimed to have a well customized system. 4% of respondents were not aware on the level of customization.

12. Internal Communication: 68% of organizations were happy with a well established internal network of communication through Telephones, E-mails, Newsletters, meetings, seminars including the state of art technologies like GPRS. 20% felt a boring formal way of communication primarily by letters. 12% stayed neutral.

13. ISO Awareness: 64% of respondents felt that their staff were aware of their system, its policy and the objectives related to them. 20% of respondents were facing a challenge in promoting the system awareness and 16% stayed neutral.

14. Organizational Learning: 56% of organizations responded of no common mechanism to benchmark or learn the best practices within various departments of the organizations or outside the organization. 32% of the respondents replied that their organization encourages knowledge sharing and 12% did not have any relevant idea.

15. Customer Complaints: 36% of respondents claimed to reduce the customer complaints after certification. 24% of respondents did not accept to reduce customer complaints since certification. 40% of respondents were neutral that there is no change in the number of complaints before and after certification.

16. Customer feedback: 28% of the respondents agreed with an effective feedback system being available at their company. 52% did not agree that they have any effective means to measure the customer feedback. 20% stayed neutral

17.Job responsibility, Authority and Accountability: 36% of organizations were not aware of their job roles and the accountability behind it. 28% responded to know their roles well. 36% of respondents stayed neutral.

18.In-process Quality and Efficiency: 32% of the respondents stated a clear improvement in the in-process quality and efficiency since getting certified. 20% stayed with no comments whereas 48% did not agree with in-process quality and efficiency improvements since certification.

19. Sub-Contractor Development: 56% of organizations did not agree that the subcontractor’s development initiatives were increased since certification. 28% agreed to have improved initiatives on the same since certification. 16% stayed neutral with no comments.

20. Key Performance reporting system: 12% respondents stayed neutral, 32% of the

respondents had a balanced score card system and 56% of the respondents did not have any such reporting system.

21. Staff Capabilities: 16% organizations agreed that they had professional methods to plan and develop staff capabilities. 24% organizations had no idea on the subject.

60% organizations denied that they had any such system.

22. Stakeholder Perception: 56% organizations had no formal measure to understand and fulfil stakeholders perception, but customers. 12% stayed with no comments and 32% respondents had a mechanism to obtain the perception of their stakeholders.

23. Management Review: 24% of the respondents agreed that the management review in their company conducted professional reviews beyond the minimum requirements of ISO. 56% did not agree that they have any effective review mechanism, but a typical document. 20% stayed neutral.

24. Corporate Social Responsibility: 36% of organizations were not aware of their corporate social initiatives. 28% responded to demonstrate social responsibility. 36% of respondents stayed neutral.

25. Overall System effectiveness: 44% of respondents had opinion that their organization has effective quality systems after certification, 56% respondents felt that their system was not effective even after certification .

Hypothesis Testing:-

Primary data collected were analyzed for the internal relationship between variables. Hypothesis testing was carried out for 9 constructs as below:-

As an example, the first one is illustrated below in the tables 2 and 3:-

HO : Null hypothesis: There is no relationship between internal audit and customer complaint

HA : Alternative hypothesis: There is a significant relationship between internal audit and reduction of customer complaint

Table 2 : hypothesis testing

	YES	NO	NEUTRAL	TOTAL
YES	32	-	-	32
NO	02	22	36	60
NEUTRAL	02	02	04	08
TOTAL	36	24	40	100

Table 3 : Hypothesis testing

Observed	Expected	(O — E)2/ E
32	11.52	36.4
2	21.6	17.42
22	14.4	4
36	24	6
2	2.88	0.26
2	1.92	0.003
4	3.2	0.2
Calculated value total =		64.28

where is the observed frequency for bin i and is the expected frequency for bin i. The expected frequency is calculated by

Calculated Chi Square = 64.28Degrees of Freedom = (c - 1)(r - 1) = 2(2) = 4

Table Chi Square value is 9.488 (for 95% significance level)

Reject Ho because 64.28 is greater than 9.488 (for 95% significance level).

Thus, we would reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis that there is a significant relationship between internal audit and reduction of customer complaint.

Similar to the test indicated above, other tests were conducted and the result is as below:-

There is a significant relationship hypothetically proven between:

a) Effectiveness of Internal Audit and reduction of Customer Complaints

b) Effectiveness of internal audits and overall System effectiveness

c) Top Management’s commitment and overall system effectiveness

d) Specifically tailored system and overall system effectiveness

e) Stakeholder perception monitoring and customer satisfaction

f) Key performance indicators and overall system effectiveness

g) Organization Culture and Corporate Social Responsibility

h) Staff knowledge and learning and the overall system effectiveness

i) Top Management commitment and Internal Audit.

No significant relationship between

j) No. of years of organization’s existence in the market and top management commitment.

VI – CONCLUSION:

Even though more than a million organizations have been certified to ISO QMS 9001 standard till date, there are certain common problems faced by majority of these certified organizations, which influences their business performance.

These problems are broadly classified into three categories as

· Leadership related issues (Inadequate Commitment by Top Management, Lack of Motivation, Recognition, Organizational learning , Strategic Planning and long term focus)

· Strategy Related Issues (Mission, Vision, Values, Strategic Planning, Strategy Mapping, Cascading down the line, KPIs and Initiatives)

· Quality System related issues (Weak PDCA cycle, generic system, internal audit not in depth, non value adding meetings/trainings and excessive paperwork)

· Society oriented gaps (Corporate Social Responsibility, Environmental Management andSustainability)

When an organization carefully eliminates these above mentioned gaps, it can be sure of the whole business model to be effective with value added processes, methods, systems and efficient resources contributing for continual improvements and towards business excellence.

VII. Scope for further Research:

The study was used to evaluate the level of effectiveness of QMS 9001 systems and classify the broad categories of gaps.

As a matter of logic, when the organizations struggle to demonstrate a minimum compliance to QMS, it may not be possible for these organizations to reach the business excellence, unless a customized model bridges between the minimum compliance to business excellence through a strategic framework, tailored specifically to suit the organization in terms of scope, scale and core competencies.

It is felt that beyond this study, there is a scope for developing a strategic framework to reach business excellence through developing a strategic management system.

VIII – REFERENCES:

1. ISO, “ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems – Requirements”, Fourth Edition, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2008.

2. ISO, “ISO 9004:2009 Managing for the Sustained success of an organization – A Quality Management Approach”, Third Edition, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2009.

3. ISO, “ISO 9000:2005 Quality Management Systems – Fundamentals and Vocabulary”, Third Edition, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2008.

4. ISO, “ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management Systems – Requirements with guidance for use”, Second Edition, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2004.

5. ISO, “ISO 14004:2004 Environmental Management Systems – Guidelines on Principles, Systems and Support techniques”, Second Edition, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2004.

6. OHSAS Project Group, “Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems – Requirements”, First Edition, OHSAS, London, 2007.

7. OHSAS Project Group, “OHSAS 18002:2008, Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems – Guidelines for the implementation of OHSAS 18001:2007”, Second Edition, OHSAS, London, 2008.

8. BSI, “PAS 99:2006 - Specification of common management systems requirements as a framework for integration”, First Edition, BSI, London, 2006.

9. ISO, “ISO 19011:2002 Guidelines for quality and/or environmental management systems auditing”, First Edition, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2002.

10. ISO, “Technical Report ISO/TR 10013:2001- Guidelines for quality management system documents, First Edition, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2001.

11. ISO, “ISO 10002:2004, Quality Management – Customer satisfaction- Guidelines for complaints handling in organizations”, First edition, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2004.

12. ISO, “ISO 10005:2005, Quality Management Systems- Guidelines for quality plans”, Second edition, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2005.

13. ISO, “ISO 10006:2003, Quality management system–Guidelines for quality management in projects”, Second edition, Geneva, Switzerland, 2003.

14. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “Alignment”, 10^th Edition, Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, USA, 2006.

15. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “Strategy Maps”, 8^th Edition, Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, USA, 2004.

16. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “Strategy Focused Organization”, 4^th Edition, Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, USA, 2000.

17. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “The Balanced Scorecard”, 12^th Edition, Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, USA, 1996.

18. Naomi Stanford, “Guide to Organizational Design”, First edition, Economist Publishers, USA, 2007.

19. Mohamed Zairi, “Excellence Toolkit”, First Edition, TQM Publishing House, Dubai,2005

20. Evangelos L.Psomas and Christos V.Fotopoulas. “A meta analysis of ISO 9001 research – findings and future proposals”. Emerald Vol1. No.2 (2009):128-144. Print

21. David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel. “How ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management System Affects Employees and Employers” . Harvard Business School Publication (2009).Print

22. Colin Carnall, “Managing Change in the organizations”, 5^th Edition, Prentice Hall, England, 2007.

23. ISO. “ISO Certification survey 2009".Web 2009.<http://www.iso.org/iso/survey2009.pdf>.

24. Mohamed Zairi, “Performance Excellence: A practical Handbook”, TQM Publishing House, Oxford, UK, 2009

25. Mohamed Zairi, the 4 Ps of Organizational Excellence, TQM Publishing House, Oxford, UK.2009.

26. Malcolm Baldrige, Criteria for performance excellence 2011-2012, Baldrige National Quality Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, USA,2011.

27. Chris hakes, a management guide the EFQM Excellence model for assessing organizational Performance. Van Haren Publishing, UK, 2009.

28. EFQM, Criteria for Business Excellence, Fifth Edition, EFQM Publications, Brussels, Belgium, 2010.

Received on 27.06.2011 Accepted on 07.08.2011

Asian J. Management 2(4): Oct.-Dec., 2011 page 191-196

1	Customer focused organization	Organizations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current and future customer needs, should meet customer requirements and strive to exceed customer expectations
2	Leadership	Leaders establish unity of purpose and direction. They should create and maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully involved in achieving the organization's objectives
3	Involvement of people	People at all levels are the essence of an organization and their full involvement enables their abilities to be used for the organization's benefit.
4	Process approach	A desired result is achieved more efficiently when activities and related resources are managed as a process.
5	System approach to management	Identifying, understanding and managing a system of interrelated processes as a system contributes to the organization’s effectiveness and efficiency in achieving its objectives.
6	Continual improvement	Continual improvement of the organization's overall performance should be a permanent objective of the organization.
7	Factual approach to decision making	Effective decisions are based on the analysis of data and information.
8	Mutually beneficial supplier relationships	An organization and its suppliers are interdependent and a mutually beneficial relationship enhances the ability of both to create value.

INTRODUCTION: