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Santa Clara Valley Water District: The Water's Fine
04 Mar 2008
Topics: Quality management, ISO 9001, Environment, ISO 14001, USA, Americas
Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) of San Jose California has become the first water district in the US to have been awarded certifications to both ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001:2004.
"This is an extremely important milestone," says Mary Ann Ruiz, the water district's Strategic Development Manager. "Having ongoing management systems in place will help all the different divisions to achieve our common goals of focusing on the products we deliver and helping to have a sustainable city."
Water district board of directors chair Rosemary Kamei agrees: "ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification is a huge accomplishment for the water district and reflects our continued commitment to make a positive contribution to the community we live and serve. Both quality and environmental stewardship are important in all that we do, including providing water, flood protection and protecting the environment of Santa Clara County. Becoming certified to both ISO standards provides our customers and partners with even more assurances about the quality of our products and customer service."
As its mission, the water district enhances its community through watershed stewardship and comprehensive management of water resources. SCVWD is one of the largest water agencies in California, and this certification represents a significant step on its journey to make the organization more efficient through a consistent process-oriented approach.
"The water district board of directors and the employees are committed to quality and environmental stewardship and this successful certification is part of an agency-wide team effort that we are proud of," adds water district CEO Olga Martin Steele.
According to Pat C Arace, vice-president of Sales Western Region for BSI Management Systems Americas, "Santa Clara Valley Water District has taken its organization to the next level by not only implementing these quality and environmental systems, but undergoing and successfully passing an in-depth, third-party assessment performed by BSI."
The water district demonstrated a high level of internal collaboration and team effort to put this in place, says Arace. They have taken a holistic approach to managing their business by integrating their systems under one set of processes and procedures which provided an enhanced business focus, improves internal communications, reduces duplication and ultimately reduces costs.
For more information, visit www.bsiamericas.com/Quality/index.xalter
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