Raising the Bar Again
Here at Hinda, we believe in pushing our limits and exceeding our own expectations. In 2004, we developed the Undisputed Leader Initiative (ULI), an internal program that aims to improve quality of service, develop innovative ideas and engage our suppliers, clients and program participants. In an attempt to maximize efficiency, maintain competitiveness in the industry and achieve operational excellence, we continually re-examine and revamp our business operations.
The ULI program was established as a way to put goals around our core functions (order rate, shipping errors, etc.) in an effort to improve customer satisfaction and maintain quality improvement. Before the program, there wasn’t a formal procedure in place for measuring our business operations.
“By publicizing our goals and getting people to work together, we get a bigger impact,” says Dave Pellissier, Director of Information Technology. “It creates peer pressure and self pressure to attain the goals.”
Now, on a year-to-year basis, the ULI team examines the goals achieved in order to find out ways to improve upon them. Just recently, changes were put in place to make the ULI team a more formalized quality improvement team. They plan to raise the bar even further and breathe new life into the program.
Starting in the warehouse, the ULI team hopes to work with the warehouse staff to optimize the way we’re shipping and improve efficiency. Currently, they’re looking at alternate shipping solutions and automation.
Along with revamping the internal metrics we assess our business with, we’re also looking to upgrade our exterior certifications. We’ve been PCI compliant for three years now. The PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) provides a framework for developing a credit card data security process, including fraud prevention, intrusion detection and appropriate reaction to security incidents. We’re looking to become ISO 27001/2 compliant within the next year. This will establish a more comprehensive information security program at Hinda. ISO 27001/2 is an industry standard security framework which will help with RFPs, security audits and other dealings with large companies.
