Introduction

Over recent years, there has been a growing recognition amongst senior management and industry of the value that robust management systems can give. And as systems have extended their reach and influence, and grown to encompass other areas such as environment, health and safety and information security, the certification programmes that have supported these have needed to keep pace.

To take these factors into account and meet anticipated customer needs, LRQA began to change its assessment methodology and approach several years ago. It was with those organisations with mature systems looking for integration that this approach really began to take shape.

D&ES Integrated Business Management System

One such client was Atkins, a multi-disciplined engineering consultancy. LRQA had worked with Atkins since 1991 before becoming their single certification supplier in 2000. However, it was with its Highways & Transportation (H&T) business unit in 2001 that an integrated assessment approach was developed by LRQA and the H&T Quality Safety and Environment (QSE) team.  The aim was to achieve the unit’s vision of a fully integrated QSE business management system and an integrated assessment. Read H&T case study

In 2005, Design & Engineering Solutions (D&ES) was formed from the merger of several Atkins divisions to become the largest business unit within the Group. The newly established organisation set a challenging target for its QSE certification programme with its new Business Management Systems (BMS).

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One system – one approval

“Our goal was a single management system for DE&S. One management system with one approval that would allow for the diversity of our activities and take account of our stakeholder needs and requirements, and all within a tight timescale.”

Kevin Toogood, D&ES Business Systems Manager

The original Atkins Group corporate objective was for all its businesses to have QSE certification by the beginning of 2006. However, with D&ES only just formed and with nearly 4,000 staff based at over 40 sites across the UK plus international operations, this clearly wasn’t a viable option within the timescale.  A revised target of summer 2006 was set.

Atkins and LRQA Assessment Team

However, this remained a significant challenge as Kevin Toogood explains. “Going into 2005, D&ES had 12 separate certificates for ISO 9001; however not all our businesses had approval to ISO 14001 or OHSAS 18001. In addition, while some systems were online, others were more traditional, paper based. We had different levels of maturity with our management systems and there was a real opportunity to benchmark across Atkins as well as D&ES to bring the best from the existing systems into our new BMS.”

In early 2006, John Inglis, D&ES Business Systems Director initiated the project to consolidate these systems in a way that would allow the businesses to go for combined certification. The challenge was to come up with a fresh new strategy for a fully co-ordinated, integrated and online single BMS that could not only comply with the requirements of the standards, but also meet customer requirements and importantly add value to Atkins business.

And it would be no simple task. Each part of the business while sharing the same top level processes based upon ISO 9001 had its own management system which were maintained and managed separately.

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Winning hearts and minds

“As with any organisation, making a change of this size, you’re often going against a natural reluctance of people who are happy with their existing BMS and processes. The will and commitment was there with Ivor Catto D&ES Managing Director and his Senior Management Team, however the real challenge of this project was to win over hearts and minds of our staff.”

Kevin Toogood, D&ES Business Systems Manager

This was one of the most significant projects that D&ES business had taken on on its BMS. It was particularly important, with the tight timescales in mind that the transition from the existing autonomous BMS approaches to a fully intergrated system was as smooth as possible which meant getting everybody on board.

So, John Inglis, Business Systems Director who initiated the project set out to ‘win hearts and minds’ of the business units. This meant engaging with the Business Systems teams on the strategy for ‘one system – one approval’ and the benefits from taking this route.

LRQA assessor Ron Bishop on site

Workshops were undertaken across the businesses by the Business Systems Managers to engage the staff, these consisted of presentations and question and answer sessions to ensure  from the outset that this project would benefit everybody by reducing bureaucracy, complexity and providing efficient processes and allow for our staff to have their say. And in this way, it would be easier to gain the buy-in necessary from the Business Systems teams and users. To ensure that everyone would have ready access, the BMS would be a fully intranet based system.

“Our success or failure would very much depend on the ability of our BSM team to gel very quickly.  It’s easy to pay lip service to team work, but the real difference was when the team were willing to go above and beyond to support their colleagues and that meant in some cases putting their own priorities’ aside to support the greater cause.”

Kevin Toogood, D&ES Business Systems Manager

The real key to winning hearts and minds was to demonstrate the common ground that already existed between the individual systems. Which processes could be shared? Where there were 12 individuals maintaining often very similar processes, how could these be combined? By assuring staff that the change wouldn’t mean a higher workload, the key benefits of the changeover could be more easily communicated. 

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Pulling together the parts

“We’ve designed our business management system around the needs of the business. While it aligns to the requirements of the QSE standards it is built around what is going to benefit us as a business and our clients the most by providing clear simple processes.”

Kevin Toogood, D&ES Business Systems Manager

Pulling the various strands of the separate systems for each of the individual businesses together into a single, unified system for D&ES was never going to be a simple task.

The system would need to take into account the sheer diversity and scale of operations involved. This includes everything from managing a contractor doing a cabling installation through to fluid dynamic modelling. So it also brought the potential to create a heavily complex system which had to be avoided as Kevin explains. “There are obvious challenges when you bring a number of systems together. We did not want a quality, safety and environmental management system that was just three systems posted in the same area on an intranet they needed to be integrated and reflect what it is we do in D&ES with all its diversity

The first step was to look at existing processes and procedures, identify areas of best practice and then looked to standardise and put together a first cut of the top level, common processes. At the same time, it was recognised that to take very challenging business unit specific requirements and put these into one BMS at this point was simply a step too far and a ‘phased approach’ was adopted.

Renewable Energy one of Atkins high profile projects

“We built our BMS around our core processes, Business Management, Staff, Clients, Winning Work, Project Execution and Business Improvement.  These core processes are underpinned by simple flowcharts and links to our other core systems such as our client satisfaction database to provide as far as possible a one-stop-shop for our staff

The BMS went live on the ‘Blue Pages,’ the Atkins intranet in January 2006 to run in tandem with the existing systems. This gave time for staff to become familiar with the new system. 

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A planning headache?

“Atkins is one of our largest single co-ordinated clients in the UK. The complexity of the assessment programme needed complete buy-in from all parties. This is a bespoke specification based on Atkins business needs using multi-site process-based sampling. We needed to be sure we could ensure integrity of our service delivery while still giving value.”

Kevin Smith, LRQA Account Manager

LRQA worked with Atkins since 1991 which had enabled the assessment and office teams to build a firm understanding of the business which was essential in meeting the client’s expectations.

REVA one of Atkins high profile projects

In early discussions between client and certification body, the potential obstacles to having a single management system that could take into account the wide diversity of occupations and activities were discussed.

Kevin Smith, LRQA Account Manager explains: “The D&ES vision of ‘one system – one approval’ was based on the philosophy that however diverse the range of activities, the organisation was essentially about project management and therefore required a generic management system at the top level. We accepted this and set about creating what was then a bespoke assessment programme to ensure that we could continue to offer a service that had integrity.”

LRQA, co-ordinating lead assessor, Ron Bishop together with Bill Gwyther, was responsible for the planning and system review. “The challenge for us really lay in being able to understand the business well enough and where D&ES were in their development to ensure that we could deliver what was expected. This meant having clear service arrangements in place from the outset,” explains Ron.

“The client wanted a reduced number of assessors with a thorough and in-depth knowledge of the D&ES business. As we were using multi-site sampling across the 40+ sites this called for high-level strategic planning at the front end. This was coupled with strong co-ordination at the back end in preparing the reports which also saw the team producing one consolidated summary report for D&ES management.”

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Mapping the risk

“The key thing from our side was really in being able to demonstrate our capability. Could we provide a set of arrangements and strategic planning that would work well, and pick up the strategic elements while delivering more than just operational certification?”

Ron Bishop, LRQA Co-ordinating Assessor

In the early days of the H&T assessment programme, there had been an LRQA assessor responsible for each of the quality, health and safety, and environmental areas. The separate management systems had become integrated and well established prior to a single co-ordinating assessor taking overall responsibility.

St Germans Pumping Station one of Atkins high profile projects

It was this assessment model that was to be taken into D&ES. However, where the H&T business had mature management systems, the new business had fast tracked its system implementation within a tight 6 month window. Added to this, D&ES was a far more complex and diverse operation.

For LRQA to be able to deliver a high quality service to meet client expectations, and to make the most of multi-site sampling approach required a high degree of flexibility. Ron Bishop explains: “We needed to set up a planning process, to plan where and what we sample. Rather than simply ticking off locations, we further developed the risk strategy first used in H&T which look at where risk existed in the business.  

“Basically this saw us carrying out a mapping exercise, identifying the ‘high, medium and low’ risks which then fed into the planning and frequency of site visits. In short, it was about focusing on the things that we really should be looking at, rather than doing a blind sampling across the business.”

It is this proactive and pragmatic approach which sees LRQA assessors so highly regarded throughout the Atkins business and for Kevin Toogood where the real value from external assessment is being felt. “Our initial conversations on planning issues were about risk – not about location. And that’s what we should be discussing. The difficult question that we’re really looking at together is, where is the risk in the business? And where therefore do the assessors need to go? They have to be convinced that we are managing risk in an appropriate and compliant way.”

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Adding value

“A reduced number of assessors who are both highly skilled and competent to assess against multi standards adds real value to our business. It makes for easier communication. They have a greater knowledge of our business and they really get to know what makes us tick – and it’s getting results.”

Kevin Toogood, D&ES Business Systems Manager

A key part of the assessment strategy for D&ES was reducing the size of the LRQA team to a core of 4 assessors from around 8. This is then supplemented by specialists covering the TickIT and AS9100 certifications for the Telecoms and Aerospace businesses respectively.

It was felt that this approach would allow the assessors to have more in-depth knowledge of the business, so helping communication. It also fits in well with the introduction of the new ‘themed approach.’ This is where a key theme for the next tranche of assessment visits is decided on – for example, in the recent round it was business improvement. The processes that have an impact on business improvement were identified and assessed to establish the effectiveness and best practice to achieve business improvement. The next theme will focus on corporate risk.

Durat one of Atkins high profile projects

“Having a core team of integrated, assigned assessors who are completely familiar with the business means they’re not starting from scratch on each visit. We invest considerable time in our opening and closing meetings with all 10 members of our BSM team present and the 3 Lead Assessors from LRQA at both events. This approach allows us and LRQA to address the core elements such as strategic direction management systems and performance of an integrated coordinated assessment in one hit.

By taking this approach communication and understanding of the audit and business perspectives and clearly understood by both teams, which in real terms means when the assessors get out into our business they are able to hit the ground running and thereby providing them with more quality time for the audit activity itself.” explains Kevin Toogood. 

However, there are inherent dangers in having a reduced team approach. What happens if an LRQA assessor is taken ill, leaves or it becomes simply impractical for them to make the assigned dates? The D&ES business is a complex one and if LRQA was to meet client expectations, it was important to have a back-up plan.

To safeguard against just this scenario, in 2006 LRQA introduced an annual ‘Atkins Day’. This sees the QSE team from Atkins and the entire LRQA assessment team (both in the UK and internationally) coming together to discuss the current and emerging business and industry issues, as well as planning assessment programmes, themes and other relevant issues. 2007 saw the day-long event being videoed. This DVD would form part of a training pack together with comprehensive notes sent out to assessors who have been identified with a specialist ‘Atkins’ code. In this way, a ‘pool’ of suitably qualified and competent assessors with relevant background knowledge of D&ES operations is maintained and can be deployed at short notice.

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Conclusion

“This has been a highly complex assessment programme to both plan and manage. It has seen us being proactive in coming up with innovative approaches to meet client expectations. In short, it meets our promise of Business Assurance.”

Kevin Smith, LRQA Account Manager

Every aspect of the D&ES programme, from planning and communications through to service delivery and reporting has been designed to give value. While aspects such as the approach to risk management and multi-site sampling had initially been trialled within the H&T business, the teams on both sides have worked together to evolve these approaches to better fit the needs of the D&ES business.  

From the LRQA side, the challenge has been in fielding a smaller team to carry out the assessment, preparing a single integrated report for top management pulled together from hundreds of assessment days, and developing a risk matrix to make sure that the assessment focus is on the right places. These have all helped create the value that the D&ES management team wanted.

Atkins high profile projects

Kevin Toogood: “We are looking for the most effective assessment model that best fit’s our business needs.  However, we recognise that what’s best today may not always be best for tomorrows changing business needs.  Our approach is to challenge both LRQA and ourselves to further develop our assessment programme in terms of value add and business assurance.  This is a real step change from traditional assessment models and now provides us both with an excellent platform to build upon.

“In business systems timelines, our approach to BMS is still maturing at a rapid rate. To go through an integrated certification programme on this sort of scale is a tremendous achievement. This was a huge undertaking not only for D&ES but also for LRQA. The complexity and size of the assessment project has really gone beyond what we’ve done elsewhere in the business.  And this could not have been achieved without the tremendous efforts of both LRQA & D&ES BSM teams” he concluded.

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