« Saft is committed to satisfying our customers with high value, error free products and services on time, every time. »
- This sentence, signed by Saft America’s CEO in 1996, featured in the preface to the US quality manual published that year. Since then, it has been adopted by all Saft’s operations. It represents our commitment to our customers and our firm intent to make continuous progress towards achieving excellence.
It is the vision of Saft’s management, and every individual’s goal.
- To achieve top results, Saft is committed to deploying specific methodologies and tools. Saft’s management has renewed its commitment to pursue and strengthen deployment of the World Class 2000 program and the Quality Initiative.
These four points form the basis for our quality program. Everyone needs to work on developing them, at every level of operations, and at all levels of our organization – from the shop floor right up to top management. It’s a condition for success.
Marc DE RYCKE
Corporate Quality Director
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Our aim of satisfying current and potential needs of our customers
has yet to become fully anchored. Nonetheless, the customer remains
the final judge of the quality of our products and services.
The Master Product Development Program (MPDP) and contract reviews
are indispensable tools.
The evaluation of customer satisfaction to identify and correct
our weaknesses is one of our main development program. And let’s
not forget that there are also in-house customers : being customer-focused
also means giving good service to the customer who is our co-worker.
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Our quality process clearly targets zero defects : doing the job
right the first time. Traditional concepts are no longer the rule
:
- Eliminate the need for inspection by building in quality as
of product design. Inspection has never ensured quality; at best
it lets us stop non-quality.
- Reject the idea of an acceptable quality level, which is really
accepting non-quality.
- Refuse exceptions, which are always
an admission of poor work.
The methodology consists in the complete deployment of Saft’s
production system, which aims at excellence in processes. The
tools are contained in the World Class 2000 road maps.
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A commitment such as Saft’s has no meaning unless a program is set
up to make progress towards this vision with the intent to make
strides – big or small – in this direction every day. This is the
spirit of the Quality Initiative, whose principles consist of :
a methodology commitment by management involved of all employees
and recognition for progress. Learning what works and what doesn’t
work, and recording our various experiences
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World Class 2000 tools are not all simple. Together we need to develop
the knowledge base and put it to work. Training modules have been
developed and will be refined to deploy the same terms and references
and to enable everyone, at their own level, to get involved in this
ambitious program. Know-how is today the key for companies who win.
We want to be among the winners.
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