Public sector gearing for efficiency
Hiran H. Senewiratne
The public sector is gearing to improve efficiency and effectiveness
by following the ISO 9001:2008 international standard.
This will help provide high quality service to the public, Sri Lanka
Standards Institution (SLSI) Director General/CEO Dr. Lalith N Senaweera
said.
"To improve efficiency and effectiveness in Government bodies, a
proper mechanism within institutions has to be implemented with basic
guidelines. Therefore, several public entities have obtained SLSI
certification," Dr. Senaweera told the Daily News. Kandy, Galle, Matara
and Kuruneagala District Secretariats, Board of Investment (BoI) and the
State Engineering Corporation have obtained the ISO 9001:2008
certification, SLSI is looking for several other public entities
including Provincial Councils and other Government institutions to
obtain certification, he said.
It will assess the whole system of the organisation and those
organisations afterwards will implement best practices to improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of such organisations to serve the public,
he said.
Dr. Senaweera said ISO 9001:2000 standard has been revised to ISO
9001:2008 and all manufacturing and service sector entities should make
changes to fit into the new version. Therefore, to retain the
certification status, the time frame is one year from the date of the
new publication of the standard which is July 15 this year.
Dr. Senaweera said over 200 companies are in the process of adopting
the new system. SLSI is attracting more manufacturing and service sector
entities including the public sector to obtain this system to penetrate
into international markets, reduce the cost and boost the image, in the
business arena.
He said changing over to a new version SLSI users will be added to
the annual payments and the new companies will have to invest Rs.
300,000 for three years. Therefore, this management system is a set of
interrelated or interacting elements set up to establish organisations
policy and the quality of the business where the company is involved, he
said.
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