News 2008  : Peugeot Motors South Africa achieves ISO 9001

05 10 2008Peugeot Motors South Africa achieves ISO 9001

2008 is proving to be a challenging year for the motor industry and the management and staff at Peugeot Motors South Africa believe that in order to attract new customers to the Peugeot brand and to retain their existing customers, they need to focus their efforts on improving quality and customer satisfaction. With this in mind, and as part of their ongoing strategic initiatives to improve customer satisfaction and quality, Peugeot Motors South Africa decided towards the end of 2007, with the assistance of Nicola Richards from Beyond 9000, to launch a quality management initiative to document all of its key internal business processes and to apply for ISO 9001:2000 certification.                                 

Why ISO?

ISO is an internationally recognised quality standard and certification will assist in giving peace of mind to PMSA’s dealer network, customers and suppliers that they are committed to quality and customer satisfaction. But ISO is not about a certificate on the wall! The documentation of their processes assists PMSA to build a foundation that will allow them to find ways to continually improve their service to their dealer network and to their customers and thereby strengthen the already popular Peugeot brand in South Africa.                                                       

This ambitious project, completed in a record 7 months, meant that each internal department at PMSA had to document all its key activities, with emphasis on the processes that impacted on customer satisfaction.
“The aim of this quality programme is to strengthen our service delivery to our dealer network and ultimately, to our customer, owners of Peugeot motor vehicles. It is part of our “TOP 3 by 2010” service quality initiative and it will strengthen our ability to deliver on our promise of being able to meet and exceed the expectations of our customers”, says Terri Russell, Quality Auditor at PMSA.                             

Bureau Veritas was appointed as the external Certification body and PMSA was officially audited in July 2008. Following this very successful audit, PMSA was awarded certification by BVQI, which is valid until August 2011.             

In the spirit of continuous improvement, PMSA will continue to have quarterly internal audits and annual external audits in order to maintain and improve on its quality management system.