Honeywell Southern Africa, the first winner of the internationally recognised South African Excellence Award, which represents the highest level of national recognition for performance excellence, is contributing to the advancement of South African organisations by sharing its 'best practices'.
"Although many organisations are well aware of the benefits and advantages of implementing the Excellence model, a number of significant companies have recently shown great interest in learning more about actually implementing the model at a practical level and they are very keen to learn from Honeywell's experience," says Hettie Viljoen, Quality Manager of Honeywell, who has been tasked with the responsibility of informing and sharing Honeywell's vision.
"The excellence model provides a company-wide framework within which all facets of a business can be assessed. Honeywell's journey in becoming a 'world-class organisation' has resulted in a cultural change of sharing knowledge that has culminated in both customer and staff satisfaction, improved customer relationships and profitability," she added.
With barriers to trade now open, the effects of international competition are being increasingly felt, and many local organisations are seeing the need to strive for higher levels of efficiency and quality in order to develop a competitive edge. Through visits and presentations at Honeywell's premises in Midrand, the South African Air Force, Billiton, Absa and the South African Post Office have recently benchmarked their organisations in terms of Honeywell's award-winning approach to excellence.
The Air Force delegation gained valuable insight into Honeywell's experiences, especially with regard to assessor training and the quality assurance requirements of the model, which they are keen to integrate into their day-to-day activities.
Competing with international organisations in ensuring customer and employee satisfaction has spearheaded the Absa organisation's drive for 'world-class' practices. "The business principles of the SAEF model are a logical approach to creating a profitable business through streamlining processes," said Nadine van Niekerk commenting on Absa's benchmarking visit to Honeywell. "We believe that Absa can benefit from Honeywell's experience."
Ongoing investigations into an appropriate business operational system for Billiton Aluminium prompted a delegation to investigate Honeywell's approach. Anton Fouché, team member for the Hillside, Bayside and Mozal Aluminium plant delegations was suitably impressed with the integrated approach to quality values, ownership of business principles and the strategic planning within Honeywell.
"Honeywell promotes an integrated approach to ownership of business principles and strategic planning which results in leadership, staff and customer satisfaction and profitability. We were very impressed with Honeywell's organisational culture which we felt provides a comprehensive measure of business excellence that is well worth emulating", he concluded.
Honeywell is conducting ongoing presentations on its approach to and implementation of the SAEF model. Interested parties should contact Hettie Viljoen on (011) 805 1201.
Honeywell Southern Africa
(011) 805 1201
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