BUILDING SAFER SYSTEMS THAT DELIVER QUALITY

Globally, more and more companies are viewing safety not only as an important OHS issue that impacts efficiency and productivity, but as a serious issue that impacts on the perceived “value” and “quality” of their product.

The term’s ‘safe’ and ‘quality’ are highly used terms that cover a broad range of aspects across an organisation. Quality Assurance, Workplace Health and Safety policies, safety procedures, ISO:9001 – these are all systems and standards that we see and use everyday. But what does it really mean to have these in our business? How do we connect and integrate our safety and quality systems with our customers? And how do we embed these into our business so that they are standard practice and part of the culture?

Of course there is no simple answer, but there are a number of ways businesses can deliver safety and quality across the total value chain. As the leading end of line packaging solutions provider in Australia, Fibre King has recently undertaken a review and diagnostics process to highlight safety and quality across the business.

Employing a QA Officer was one of the first steps in this process and the next was to refine current Standard Operating Procedures and develop a communications plan, with an emphasis on safety and training, for both our staff and customers.

Michelle Chenery, QA Officer for Fibre King, is ensuring that Fibre King have all of the relevant policies and ISO procedures embedded in their standard business systems – in essence the business systems framework ensures Fibre King is automatically compliant with international standards. “Without standard procedures and practices in place it is difficult to ensure that a company will maintain a clear direction, this is a journey that we are all on. Customers need to know that Fibre King have systems & processes in place to deal with any problems and can address concerns that they have in a timely manner.” – Michelle Chenery, Fibre King QA and Safety Officer.