Bytes Document Solutions, the sole authorised distributor of Xerox products in southern Africa, has bolstered its group-wide quality and service excellence initiatives with the attainment of an ISO 9001:2000 certification at an additional 11 of its Xerox Business Services sites.
The newly ISO certified sites are: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte & Touche, Citibank, Discovery Health, Bayer, Abbott, Murray & Roberts, Highveld Steel, Law Society, Ford Motor Company and Standard Bank.
"Quality management is an ongoing process, whereby we aim to achieve ever-increasing quality and productivity by doing the right things, the right way, the first time," says Steve Smith, quality assurance manager at Bytes Document Solutions.
ISO 9001:2000 is a set of requirements, developed by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), to govern quality management systems and processes in a business. Accepted internationally, the certification covers aspects ranging from product standards to customer relationship management.
Certified sites are regularly re-evaluated, to ensure processes in the organisation remain compliant with the requirements as laid down by the standard.
"Bytes Documents Solutions has 48 business services sites nationwide," Smith says. "The company`s objective is to have all of these sites ISO 9001:2000 certified by 2007."
Xerox Business Services sites are self-contained, outsourced facilities management sites that offer a fully outsourced solution to manage a customer`s printing and document management needs. From on-site print rooms, all necessary printing equipment, multifunctional devices, software, stock and staff are managed and maintained.
Achieving ISO 9001:2000 certification requires a company to develop a quality management system that identifies processes, implements procedures to manage process performance and improves the system through continuous monitoring.
The standard requires that quality system documents are prepared to describe how processes interact and to define the scope of the quality system. These documents form the required proof to indicate that the quality management system makes the grade.
"ISO 9001:2000 also requires that the importance of the quality system and quality, in meeting customer and statutory requirements and the formulation of quality objectives and policies, is entrenched within the company," Smith says. "Quality management is not only about ensuring that a product or service is of the highest quality; it attests to the process of resource utilisation and how this is managed and reviewed at the highest level."
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Bytes Document Solutions, previously known as Xerox South Africa (Pty) Ltd, is a South African company engaged in the marketing and servicing of a complete range of Xerox document equipment software, solutions and services. The Bytes Technology Group Limited, a listed entity on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, wholly owns Bytes Document Solutions, the Xerox distributor in 25 African countries. For more information on Xerox, visit www.xerox.com/news.
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