ISSN 1753-9439 Paper 4 Vol 2 No 1 pages 87 – 121
Process Standardisation and Sustainable Continuous Improvement: a closer look at the application of ISO 9000 to Logroño City Council (Spain).
Purpose – International standards (e.g. ISO 9000) have been adopted by some public administrations in order to certify their processes. In Spain, during the last 15 years, some local council’s have also followed similar standardisation initiatives sometimes under the umbrella of global quality programmes trying to support continuous process improvement (CPI). In this paper we address three main research questions: a) How may the standardisation process contribute to the sustainability of continuous improvement? b) What risks can entail a standardisation process concerning the sustainability of continuous improvement efforts? c) When and how problems arise during this standardisation process? This article aims to shed light on some aspects of the relationship between standardisation process and sustainability of continuous improvement in public sector.
Design/methodology/approach – The Case Study approach was adopted in this research. The research conducted in the Logroño City Council was of the retrospective type. Three methods were employed to gather the primary research data: direct observation; documentary analysis; and semi-structured in-depth interviews.
Findings – Process standardisation has helped, in the case studied, reducing variability in the outcomes of public service processes, and has opened opportunities for improvement. Process standardisation may constitute a first step towards a sustainable continuous improvement process. However, the standardisation process has itself risks and potential problems, some specific to local public administrations, which should be taken into account and avoided.
Originality/value – A review of academic and business sources indicated that work on standardisation process and sustainability in continuous improvement in Spain public sector is almost absent. This paper makes a contribution to fill this gap based in our empirical work, which covers both perspectives, providing and integrated view to this relationship.
Keywords: Standardisation process, Sustainability, Continuous Process Improvement, Public Administration, Spain.