PQ Africa (PQA) has been awarded a multisite ISO 9001 certificate covering 33 sites, making the international quality standards certification the biggest awarded in South Africa. PQA is also the first IT company in South Africa to receive TickIT accreditation - which recognises competence in the local development of software. In addition to the multisite certification, individual ISO 9001 certification for operations in the US, UK and Australia has also been achieved. This also makes PQA the first black empowered IT company to comply with the ISO9001 requirements.
Accredited by SGS (Societe Generale de Surveillance) Q Data Limited was required to revisit its ISO 9001 certification after the merger with Persetel Holdings Ltd in October 1997. PQ Africa looked to obtain a multisite certification rather than renew individual certifications.
"This bold and brave move required a totally new assessment of all the operations within the group. Within one year of the merger the company had realigned all systems in accordance with the international ISO 9001 standards and successfully complied with the 20 relevant clauses pertaining to quality standards for design, development production, installation and servicing. This in itself deserves an accolade," says Dave Anderson, national certification manager of SGS South Africa.
"Nowadays, clients are well versed on the inherent advantages of quality management systems (QMS) and the international ISO 9001 certification. It has become a fundamental requirement," says Leen van der Bijl, CEO of PQ Africa. On its own, ISO 9001 simply describes a set of requirements. Certification satisfies our customer`s quality demands by embodying our commitment to excellence. Quality is not the potential of excellence; it is the promise of excellence. "
PQA has embraced the deliberate establishment of an organisational culture of quality control and over 30 different business units take full responsibility and ownership for their own quality management systems.
"This places a big responsibility on the individual managers, but it is an accepted fact that the IT industry is extremely competitive and to survive, companies within the PQA group need to retain leadership through their performance and satisfaction of customers. This depends on the quality of staff, resources, work processes and management. The ISO multisite certification demonstrates our commitment to service our clients` consistently. The compliment of over 5 700 staff recognise that the adherence to quality assurance has become a condition of survival and not an option," says van der Bijl.
PQA is one of only two IT groups to boast a multisite certification.
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Persetel Q Data Africa (Pty) Limited effectively started trading on 1 October 1997 as a result of the merger of the business activities of Persetel Holdings Limited and Q Data Limited. PQ Africa is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comparex Holdings.
The company delivers solutions based on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) building blocks, which are aimed at addressing the client`s business challenges, needs and opportunities and which enhances the client business operations.
PQ Africa enjoys strong relationships with primarily corporate and large public sector clients. The provision of state-of-the-art computing platform solutions and related peripheral equipment and services remains a strong focus within PQ Africa. The solutions offered range from workstation platforms through open systems to high availability systems and mainframes, and PQ Africa remains the leading supplier of these computing platform solutions in Africa.
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