What is the right Direction?

About this passion

We want to do the best quality. We want to know who can tell us we are the best. It is always in our minds and hearts to live quality, to do quality. Whenever we see our products and services on display, we take pride on them, we want our customers to talk about them.We want our customers never to regret patronizing them. We as individuals and as a team have this great and emotional passion to deliver what we promise to the customers.

Is this the right direction? I observe in many successful and most admired companies such driving and moving passions for quality and customer satisfaction. I personally think that companies and organizations with such a mentality and practices are number one in their fields.


Such companies do the following:

  1. Enmesh their people with the voice of the customers;
  2. Educate them in the concepts and tools of quality;
  3. Invest seriously on education and training;
  4. Connect them directly and immediately to the customers;
  5. Share with them informations about the market and customers' feedback;
  6. Eliminate barriers of communications among teams and among the customers;
  7. Work as a team from Production to Markets, and develop "dream teams";
  8. Encourage entrepreneurship and promote empowerment.
  9. Operate Just-in-Time;
  10. Invest on Information Technology.

In Stanfilco, Dole Philippines, and Dole Asia, we have introduced the following interventions to promote this passion for Quality:

  1. Gradually in years we expose our leaders and coaches to the marketplaces. They stay for a week to three months to work as quality inspoctors and observe customer satisfactions;
  2. Our Production Managers are Market Executive Sponsors;
  3. The Cross-functional Teams combine the talents of Production, Operations, and Marketing expertise to ensure quality flow of the product and service life cycle.
  4. Organizations are flat with only four layers from the workers to the customers.
  5. Our sales-people and customers come and visit the production lines regularly;
  6. We have yearly Production and Market Conferences where all the cross-functional teams gather and review performances, future plans and strategies;
  7. We have the Dole University to encourage lifelong learning;
  8. We install quality systems with the ISO-9000 and 14000 tandards, and the practice of Total Productive Maintenance to ensure consistency and predictabillity of performances.
  9. We subject ourselves to the Baldrige Criteria for a regular self-assessment and third-party assessments.
  10. We are investing on Information Technology in the Intranet/Internet capabilities to share and communicate informations.
  11. We encourage our people to be self-directed and to participate in Quality Improvment Teams;
  12. We promote self-development through the Quality Improvement Teams and through Sports and the Arts and Theater.

With these interventiuons, our Dole Top Leadership has been visibly communicating to effectively instill the six Dole Values: Quality, Cost, People, Customers, Teamwork, and Entrepreneurship.




(JPM: update, October 13, 1999)




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