OCS

OCS is a privately owned company offering the full range of facilities services across all key market sectors. With over 100 years experience in a broad range of services, turnover now exceeds £674M with 60,000 staff employed around the world.

Quality and efficiency culture

Achieving improvements in quality and efficiency has become a part of the corporate culture at OCS. Through their membership of the Cleaning and Support Services Association (CSSA), one of the BQF's strategic partners, they were introduced to Committed to Excellence (C2E) in 2008.

The first stage was to complete a self-assessment of the organisation and OCS used the 'Determining Excellence' questionnaire which was completed by a sample of 12 of their senior managers. This was followed by a half-day workshop to review the output of the assessments and choose the three improvement projects to implement.

It was clear from the self-assessment results that OCS was already performing very well in a number of areas. They regularly review and update policy & strategy; have well managed external partnerships; and perform a high level of measurement in terms of customer perception and performance indicators. Their sustained commitment to supporting youngsters in sport was also highlighted.

Improvement projects

It was recognised that the most important part of the process is stage 2: implementing the three improvement projects. From a short list of six potential projects, OCS decided to focus on:

• Business Continuity
• Accrediting their Health & Safety Management System to OHSAS 18001
• Raising environmental awareness across the organisation

The third and final stage of the C2E accreditation process is the site visit, which takes a full day. OCS exceeded the minimum criteria by meeting the RADAR requirements in all 3 projects, and was awarded C2E status. The assessor noted in his feedback report evidence of strong leadership involvement in the C2E process, as well as a genuine customer focus from the people he spoke to. This was certainly one of the key factors in their success. The recommendation for future performance improvement activity was to move on to the Recognised for Excellence programme.

'I am delighted that OCS has made this Commitment to Excellence. The cleaning industry is transforming itself into a highly skilled and high quality sector and the Excellence Model is the ideal management driver of that process. The CSSA is pleased to be working with the BQF to deliver the EFQM Excellence Model to the cleaning sector.'
Andrew Large, Chief Executive, CSSA

'Achieving Committed to Excellence status is a positive endorsement of the progress we are making in the continual improvement of our business practices. The specific projects completed as part of this programme were of significant importance to us as a business and more importantly, to our customers and our other stakeholders. We are delighted with the outcome and will be pleased to recommend the EFQM Levels of Excellence programme.'
George Parish, Quality & Compliance Director, OCS Group UK

Find out more

For more details about C2E and the EFQM Levels of Excellence programme, please call Ian Swain on 020 7654 5009 or contact us online.

Read more case studies.

Tweet