Improving customer experience with a CMMS: Suggestions from ISO 9000

Continuous improvement of customer experience will benefit any organization, of any size. With improved experiences, customers are more likely to return for future business and more likely to recommend you to others.

Improving the customer experience is an organization wide activity. Leadership from management is required to make it to happen, but buy in from front line staff is also required if the customer is going to experience the improvements.

The ISO family of international standards

The stated intention of the ISO 9000 family of international standards is to assist organizations implement and operate an effective quality management system (ISO9000). A quality management system can, in turn, improve customer experience. The 8 quality management principles that govern the ISO9000 family are these:

1. Customer focus
2. Leadership
3. Improvement of people
4. Process approach
5. System approach to management
6. Continual improvement
7. Factual approach to decision making
8. Mutually beneficial supplier relationships

Using some of the ideas of the ISO9000 will improve the customer experience of your organization, even if your organization does not desire to undergo all of the steps required to achieve full certification.

Your maintenance system can help your organization in each of the 8 quality management principles of the ISO9000 family. For example, improved production reliability will the experience of your customers (management principle number 1). The improved reliability will be because company leadership (2) installed a CMMS as part of a system wide improvement of the maintenance management strategy (5). Any work performed can be recorded in the CMMS, and the process (4) of further improvements in maintenance strategy will be based on this factual data. Employees (3) will also benefit with less ad-hoc maintenance requests and suppliers (8) will appreciate the increased lead times and more consistent communication for purchase and delivery of critical maintenance supplies.

The value of a CMMS

A CMMS can also eliminate most of the non-value adding tasks associated with implementing a maintenance system of ISO9000 standard. This includes storing all of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), Standard Maintenance Procedures (SMP), Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) and drawings, for every asset, and making these available for easy and quick retrieval by whoever needs to see them. In addition to eliminating these non-value adding costs associated with storing and retrieving physical copies of these documents, making them readily available can reduce the time required for a machine to be returned to operating status, thereby also reducing the value adding costs of using these documents.

If you do decide to obtain ISO9000 certification, then a CMMS will be a great way to start your quest.

Learning to use a CMMS can be quick and you can start for a small cost . Using one can help your organization toward reach the goals of the ISO9000 family of standards of improving the experience of your customers.