The voice of business in the Tees region | 85
Quality guaranteed –
from Teesside
to Qatar
C
leveland Cable Company is celebrating
a double quality success after
completing a custom-built testing
centre at its Teesside headquarters
whilst gaining a prestigious BSI Kitemark
accreditation.
Headquartered on Middlesbrough’s
Riverside Park but with bases in Dublin and
Dubai as well as other areas of England,
around half of Cleveland Cable’s 600
worldwide staff are employed on Teesside.
And the firm’s achievement in gaining the
BSI Kitemark for its Middlesbrough testing
facility was a key element in the successful
supply of cable for a major oil and gas
project in Qatar.
The firm has achieved the Kitemark for
its internal testing of electrical and other
cables, further underlining its established
commitment to quality assurance
excellence.
As a result, Cleveland Cable was able
to ship out an entire batch of cable to the
Middle East after detailed and extensive
testing by external auditors.
The firm was awarded the Qatar
contract following a lengthy tender process
stretching over more than six months with
almost daily clarifications required by the
client. However, the hard work had only just
begun.
Every stage of the process - from receipt
of purchase order, clarifications, cable
design and manufacture, confirmation of
delivery schedule, packing and shipping
lists - was tightly controlled by a complex
document management procedure
recording all information needed to provide
final build operations and maintenance
(O&M) manuals.
Michael Powell, the firm’s global business
manager, said the final part of this extensive
process “hinged upon the successful
testing and final packaging for shipping to
Qatar”.
Both the prime contractor and the end
client invited to Cleveland Cable’s Teesside
headquarters individual members of Bureau
Veritas and Intertek, world leaders in
providing independent audit, testing and
certification services.
“Our testing facilities were thoroughly
scrutinised,” said Michael. “All cable was
checked and tested in their presence and
the entire batch was certified for shipping to
the end client.
“Cleveland Cable can only guarantee
the quality of our products as a result of
our hands-on approach at every step. From
design to delivery, our QA team are heavily
involved to ensure the cable requested is
the cable that arrives on site, fully tested
with all appropriate certification.”
Is it what you want or
what you need?
Malcolm Knott, managing director of Industrial Technology
Systems (ITS), considers a case of Need vs Want
T
he team at ITS has recently been
involved in three projects for which the
customers were trying to write their
user requirement specifications [URS].
Sounds easy, but it’s probably the hardest
thing to do in business. You wouldn’t buy
a car without saying what you wanted,
but how many would start that list with
something like: “Blue, two-litre engine, five
seats” or perhaps “Less than £10,000”?
Of course, in fact what you need is safety
for the passengers (probably your family),
an engine capable of maintaining 70mph at
2,500rpm or less whilst causing the least
environmental damage possible.
Some might even start that list with: “The
same as the old one, but newer.”
However, these three projects are not
‘the norm’. Surprisingly, many new systems
are bought with no properly considered
URS - or are based on a badly formed URS.
Too many aren’t given the right level of
Want vs Need consideration.
When you are buying a car, of course, you
might be looking at a cost between £5,000
and £40,000 and expect it to last five or
six years before you sell it for 10% of the
purchase price, and you look again.
A control or management information
system might cost £200,000 to £500,000,
but you might have it for 10 to 15 years – or
more – and you expect a significant return
on investment. You might reasonably expect
to get RoI within 8-12 months and every
8-12 months thereafter it’ll pay for itself
again - if you get it right.
Too many URS are created with the
existing system in mind - “The same as
the old one, but newer” view - when doing
so stops you enjoying 15 years or more of
technical advancement.
In the projects above, the customer
saw the benefit of getting away from “The
same, but newer” by inviting ‘outsiders’ in
to challenge their requirements – looking at
the Need vs Want and opening up to new
technical advancements.
To find out more about how ITS deal
with Need vs Want, visit its-ltd.co.uk