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VOLUME 34 NUMBER 71992

A c h i e v i n g Q u a l i t y S t a n d a r d sf o r O p e n L e a r n i n g : B S 5 7 5 0a t W o l s e y H a l l

Peter Newell

BS 5750, devised 13 years ago for manufacturingindustry, is rapidly becoming a touch-stone forquality in any kind of organization. And rightlys o . In this article I hope to try to spell out whatBS 5750 is about, how we are implementing itand what it means to our organization. WolseyHall has for many years developed and offereddistance learning courses for mature people inmany parts of the world. Today we specialize inthe fields of management development andprofessional law and banking. Our aim is tocombine academic excellence with the mosteffective means of presentation and delivery.

THE MEA NING OF BS 5750BS 5750 accreditation means quite simply that anorganization has the systems and procedures inplace to enable it to deliver its promises to itscustomers. Procedures need to be clearly definedand in writing; each person in the organizationmust have immediate access to the procedureswhich are relevant to his/her j o b ; each personmust be able to show an assessment team thathe/she can understand and implement theprocedures and, where possible, contribute tothem. The latter is particularly important.Systems and procedures need to be "own ed" andtherefore in large measure developed by thepeople who use them daily. Only then areprocedures likely to be both appropriate andeffective.

"Custom ers" are not only those to whom weship goods or provide a service; they are internalto an organization as well as external to it. Thereis no organization, except the sole trader, which is

not dependent on other internal staff and/or otherinternal departments for delivering quality. Eachdepartment of an organization has to deliverquality to other departments for the whole todeliver quality to external customers. Clearly itmakes no sense for the one department to take anorder and promise delivery which it knows isoutside the capacity of the production area. It isvital therefore that all parts of an organ izationhave a clear understanding of what they canexpect from the others, and a well defined systemin place for ensuring that those expectations areregularly met. That is what BS 5750 is about.

A CASE STUDY IN IMPLEMENTING BS 5750We started to dev elop a Total Q ualityManagement policy three years ago. We held anumber of staff workshops and made someuseful, if uneven, progress. It becameincreasingly clear that we needed to introduceideas which were more clearly customer-focused,more tangible and m ore measurable. We thoughtthat BS 5750 might provide a strong platform onwhich quality could be built into the organization.

Our first step in Septembe r 1990 was to seek aconsultant. Be warned, the language of B S 5750is generic. Without experience of B S 5750 it ishard to understand and work with the language.In my judgement a good consultant is crucial andwill save hours and days of time. Good sources ofconsultants are the BS 5750 accreditingorganizations (there are abou t 12 now, includingBureau Veritas (BVQ I), with whom we work).At the first meeting with the consultant wediscussed the business with her in depth, showedher its workings and introduced her to the staff.On the second, she spent time with each functionwithin the business (except Marketing andducation + Training, Vol. 34 No. 7,1992, pp. 33-34. MCB University Press, 0040-0912.

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EDUCATION+ TRAINING

Accounts at this stage - since they are notformally part of the BS5750 process). We feltthat it was important that shehave as clear and asdetailed an understanding of the whole as quicklyas possible. This was achieved comfortably intwo days; naturally this time-period would belonger for a more complex business (we employ25 full-time staff in-house and about 220 part-time, outside staff).The next objective was for the consultant, onthe basis of her voluminous notes, to draw up anoutline for the BS 5750 manual. The manualconsists of two sections. The first section, onpolicy, defines terms and lays down, in outline,ho w the business operates and the control systems(such as review meetings and internal audits)which need to be in place to ensure conformancewith the BS 5750 standards. The second section,on procedures, describes systematically and indetail the outline procedures for each part of thebusiness.Four full d ays were spent with the consultant,once her first draft had been prepared, workingand reworking both sections, based on our moreintimate knowledge of how things worked. It wasnow May/June 1991 and we were 80 per cent ofthe way towards having a manual which met bothour own procedures and BS 5750 standards. It wasnow time to involve the rest of the internal staff,which we did, starting in June 1991 with a halfday workshop to explain in detail theobjectives ofBS 5 750, what would be required of them and torun through with them the manual in outline.

We then held mini-workshops with the stafffrom separate areas of the business, seeking theirguidance and advice on ho w themanual of policiesand procedures could be made more precisely toconform with reality; also to work together onideas for how things could be done better and moreconsistently. How in other words could weimprove procedures and so quality standards?By this time we had agreed a date with BVQ Ifor assessment in December 1991. The die wascast. During thenext months, prior to December,our consultant, whom we had now appointed ourinternal auditor for BS 5750 , spent two audit dayswith us, checking both the consistency of themanual w ith BS 5750 standards and also theextent to which staff were observing it. Bothaudits resulted in significant changes toprocedures and to the manual. It is critical tounderstand that "the manual" is never cast instone. If it is to reflect the dynamics of anorganization, it must and will change regularly,not least in response to the constant smallimprovements which are being made by everyone.

Another point of importance is to realize thatno organization is ever perfect - and certainly notby the time of first assessment for BS 5750. Whatis important for the assessing bodies is thatdynamic systems and controls should be in placein theorganization, which will lead to improvedquality of performance over time. I believe that itwill take a minimum of three years for us really tobe delivering the sort of quality we would like,consistently and throughout the organization.BS 5750 does not end with accreditation. Itbegins then; accreditation is simply the tip of theiceberg.WHAT DOES BS 5750 MEAN 12MONTHSON?It means first and foremost that there is a steadilyincreasing understanding of and commitment toquality by everyone within the organization. Wedo not seek major and dramatic improvements inwhat we do; rather we seek, daily, little chang es,improvements and development, which willtogether, over time, be highly significant.Having got a basic system in place andworking, we can now focus on those internalareas (marketing and accounts) which are not partof the BS 5750 specification; and we can focustoo on our large num ber of off-site staff, tutors,authors, editors, DTP staff, proofreaders, whoseeffectiveness is also critical to our success.There are also our partners (wework closelywith Oxford Brookes University [formerlyOxford Polytechnic], Middlesex University andOxford College of Further Education). We areworking with them on quality improvements sofar as their work impinges on our jointlydelivered programmes.And then there are our external customers.Because we are much clearer about our ow ninternal procedures, we are much better able totailor our program mes effectively to meet theirrequirements. We can as well be very specificabout what is required of them internally todeliver on their side of any contractualarrangement between us.Did I say that we would deliver improvedquality in three years...? But, as the Chinese say,"Long journey begin w ith small step..." I believewe are on the way.Peter Newell is Chairman, Wolsey Hall, Oxford,UK, offering distance learning courses inManagement Developmen t, Professional Law andBanking.

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