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By Ravi Ladduwahetty

A Sri Lankan consultancy firm on Management Systems has successfully completed three consultancy assignments for Pakistan Tobacco Company Limited, a member of the Fortune 500 British American Tobacco (BAT) Group.

The three assignments include ISO 9001: 2000, ISO 14001: 1996 and SA 8000: 2001 as well as a Software System to run the respective Management Systems.

The firm, Somaratna Consultants (Pvt.) Limited is already working on a business process re-engineering exercise for a leading financial institution in Colombo and the company is in the process of commencing a similar business process re-engineering assignment for a client in a South Pacific Island, its Chairman/ Managing Director, K. C. Somaratna said.

The company has contributed immensely to the Sri Lankan business community and has worked with premier blue chip companies, Presidential Award winners, Sri Lanka National Quality Award Winners, Fortune 500 companies, Business Today Top 10 companies, BOI ventures, multinationals and also with medium to small futuristic organisations.

Explaining the assignments for Pakistan Tobacco, Somaratna said that he had to rethink the entire method of operation to carry out a consultancy assignment abroad.

In Sri Lanka the consultant involved in an assignment had the entire team behind him and in Pakistan he had to use internet facilities extensively to provide the back up required by the team visiting Pakistan.

The first assignment awarded by Pakistan Tobacco was to provide consultancy on an Integrated Management System conforming to ISO 14001: 1996 and ISO 9001: 2000 for their factory at Jhelum in the Punjab province and the second was awarded by Pakistan Tobacco also for an Integrated Management System conforming to ISO 14001: 1996 and ISO 9001: 2000 for their factory complex in Akora Khattak near Peshawar.

This assignment covered 19 sites in the tobacco growing areas, leaf processing activities and cigarette manufacturing. This assignment also had a tight delivery schedule of six months and he has successfully achieved the time target. The third assignment involved getting SA 8000: 20001 standard for the entire Pakistan Tobacco Company and that too was successfully completed within the very tight time duration. Somaratna Consultants pioneered the Integrated Management system concept in Sri Lanka having successfully completed assignments covering ISO 9002: 1994 and ISO 14001: 1996. The assignment for Pakistan has the integration of ISO 9001: 2000 with ISO 14001: 1996.

At present, the company is busy developing a few integrated systems for prominent organisations in Sri Lanka, which include a Presidential Award Winner (integrating ISO 9001: 2000, ISO 14001: 1996 and HACCP) and Sri Lankan garment-manufacturing unit of an international consumer product company (integrating ISO 9001: 2000, ISO 14001: 1996 and WRAP), Somaratna said.

Computerised assistance

Somaratna Consultants claim to be the only Sri Lankan consultancy firm with their own software system to assist implementing ISO 9000, ISO 14000 and SA 8000 systems. This computerised system is already operational at Ceylon Tobacco Company Ltd, Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd, Sri Lanka's garment manufacturing unit of an international consumer product company and a Presidential Award winner.

This software which was developed in-house by Somaratna Consultants helps an organisation to control documentation, conduct internal audits, training, record management, maintenance of plant and machinery, calibration, management and incorporation of legal requirements for environmental activities, identifying environmental aspects, managing environmental projects, environmental monitoring, management review and the list goes on and on.

SA 8000: 2001

According to Somaratna, one of the most important contributions his company has made to the Sri Lankan business community is to get the experience of preparing a company for SA 8000: 2001 standards. The SA 8000: 2001 standard is a stringent standard prescribing requirements for labour related activities and it is based on ILO conventions, recommendations as well as on United Nations Declarations.

The SA 8000 standard has eight major criteria which cover child labour, forced labour, safety and health, freedom of association and collective bargaining, discrimination, disciplinary action, remuneration and working hours.

As Sri Lanka is being hotly promoted as a capable destination for subcontracted manufacturing, we need to address labour related concerns for global brands. Since some global brands have already being severely punished by consumers for subcontracting manufacturing activities to "Sweatshops" they select preferred partners based on labour practices also.

Since SA 8000 is an international standard for labour activities Somaratna is also concerned about the fact that Sri Lanka is a little bit late to get into it. As the only consultant with experience in obtaining SA 8000 certificate for a client he is uniquely positioned.

ISO 140001

Somaratna has been able to position his company as the market leader for ISO 14000 consultancy by training the team members well before Sri Lankan industry showed real interest in ISO 14000. His team boasts of an M.Sc. in environmental engineering, an environmental emergency planner and environmental management system auditor. So far Somaratna Consultants has completed five assignments and Somaratna believes another four assignments will be completed before the end of this year.

Innovation

The most recent message of Somaratna is: "Innovate or Perish" and he devotes a significant amount of resources behind it too. Somaratna Consultants believe in introducing newer products into the market which helps Sri Lankan businesses to be world class companies. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact they are into HACCP (out of the two assignments they have one company will be going for certification this week), Business Process Re-engineering (they provide assistance to a leading financial institution), Business Continuity Planning (they have a qualified consultant on Business Continuity Planning), CMM(working on with one organisation) and TL 9000 (working on with one organisation).

A school master of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry prior to his exploits in industrial chemistry, he was also the coach of the champion chess team of Trinity College, Kandy which clinched the inaugural Brook Bonds Trophy for the inter school chess championships in 1973 beating Royal College, Colombo in the Semi Finals and S. Thomas' College, Mt. Lavinia in the Finals.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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