INSIGHT
down the chain again, with somewhere
along the line the message getting lost.
Solutions are often more creative and
cost-effective because the people with
the problem solved it themselves. If
management has a relationship with the
operators and technicians, they will pick
up on these solutions and be able to adjust
them where necessary.
There is yet another channel of
communication that is also important
for quality, which is unfortunately
also frequently neglected. This is
communication of quality to the marketing
department. If the marketers do not know
what they have, they do not know what they
sell. They look like fools when they think
they are selling one thing and it turns out to
be quite another. When marketing staff has
confidence in the quality of their product,
their sales increase.
External communication
Better communication with the marketing
staff leads to improved communication
40_QUARRY SA | MAY/JUNE 2019
“Transparency in quality builds
stable relationships. In a slow
economy, stable, loyal relationships
are of invaluable worth.”
with the customer. You know the saying
that concrete can be made of anything,
as long as it is consistent? Aggregate
consumers go to great lengths to develop
mix designs based on results supplied by
quarries. But when there is a problem at
the quarry, the quarry does not inform the
customer. The customer’s mix design no
longer works and the marketing person sits
with angry customers. This could have been
avoided if the customer had been informed
that the sand was a bit finer than usual or
the stones a bit coarser — they can adjust
their mix design to accommodate these
differences.
There was a time in business when suppliers
tended to hide their mistakes. That time
belongs to the distant past. Transparency in
quality builds stable relationships. In a slow
economy, stable, loyal relationships are of
invaluable worth.
Dinesh C. Paliwal, the president and
CEO of Harman International Industries
(an international subsidiary of Samsung)
and a veteran of corporate turnaround,
maintains that “Collaboration is a key
part of the success of any organisation,
executed through a clearly defined vision
and mission and based on transparency and
constant communication.”
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