When it’s your job to help a lot of other people get ready for their jobs, your work day begins at a time that could easily be mistaken for night.
That’s true for a lot of us at Roscoe, but especially for the team members who work on the wash floor. So when Sergio Peña was assigned to the wash floor as his part of a recent internal audit, setting his alarm clock to wake at 1:15 a.m. was a bit of an effort, even for the early-rising District Service Manager.
Peña ordinarily arrives at 5 a.m. to oversee the five Route Service Representatives who report to him. By that time, the wash floor team members have already been on the job for at least two hours. But spending a little time each year working alongside team members in a completely different role is an important part of our continuous improvement efforts.
ISO 9001:2015 Holding Ourselves Accountable
It’s also part of the process of maintaining our ISO certification. As part of the process, Roscoe conducts two internal audits every year, assigning team members to review processes in a department other than their own, learning how other parts of the company operate and looking for areas where there is room for improvement.
Our team member auditors document processes that need corrective or preventive actions as well as opportunities for improvement. They often also leave with a heightened sense of respect for their co-workers.
“I have a lot of praise for our production team,” said Peña of his time on the wash floor. “They are definitely our first line of defense as they get things ready for our drivers.”
Peña joined Roscoe CEO Jim Buik on the wash floor to study the process and suggest improvements. The next step is an external audit to determine whether we are meeting the criteria for a quality management system under the ISO 9001:2015 standard.
The ISO quality management standard, used by over a million organizations in more than 170 countries, is built on principles that include a strong customer focus, motivated management and processes built around continual improvement. It’s a difficult, but important third-party standard that helps us stay accountable to our internal goals and to our customers.
Goal of Continuous Improvement in Everything We Do
The internal audits provided valuable feedback on things like training and the effectiveness of job aids for documenting how things are done.
“The goal is safety, quality and efficient outcome,” says Buik. “We want to get the process as good as possible and as streamlined as possible and to ensure all equipment is operating properly. It’s a learning exercise.”
Sales Team Leader Graham Johnson agrees. “I’ve been at Roscoe for 13 years and I learn something new every time I conduct an internal audit.”
Our Job is Helping Make Your Job Easier
ISO 9001:2015 certification is one part of a larger continuous improvement strategy that enables Roscoe to offer the highest quality work uniform rental service and products. ISO certified since 2003, Roscoe is one of the few independent work uniform rental companies to have such a long commitment to quality and continuous improvement through ISO 9001:2015 certification.
A diligent system of internal and external review of our processes ensures that we do not become complacent or overlook areas where we can improve our efforts to serve our customers, who are, after all, the reason we are approaching our 100th anniversary as Chicago’s independent, family-owned work uniform provider.
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