Category: Insights

Is Outsourcing Worth The Risk?

The last few days have seen the publishing of a damning report from the Commons public administration committee into the failure of large outsourcing contracts to deliver value for money. The report was prompted by the recent collapse of Carillion and the fall-out for Government procurement departments that spend a reported £251.5bn per annum on…

Stopping the “race to the bottom” in Outsourcing

What’ going wrong? I watched with interest Serco’s Group Chief Executive, Rupert Soames, on Breakfast News yesterday morning discussing the need for a reformed UK Public Sector Outsourcing market. He expanded on this theme in Serco’s 2017 full year results presentation, warning of “a market for the dumb and desperate” if collective action is not…

Digital transformation and quality – an expert’s view

In the December issue of Quality World, published by the CQI, John Oakland shares the Oakland Institute’s latest research on companies undergoing digital transformation.  The research is particularly focused on how those companies ensure they can manage the quality of their product or service when digital innovation can bring great change. The opportunities and risks…

Quality and how to build it your business

“All too often quality is viewed as ‘a thing’ which can be given to an individual (the most senior person with ‘quality’ in their job title) or the Quality Department to own and manage.”   Andy Crossley has recently published an article in Quasar – the in-house magazine of the Research Quality Association (RQA, https://www.therqa.com/about/ ),…

5 lessons I’ve learnt from Big Data LDN

I attended my latest ‘data’ conference last week, getting a pass from the team to go to ‘Big Data London’. Given this was my first time at Big Data LDN (not London!) I didn’t really know what to expect, so the things I walked away with are perhaps not news to some, but they are…

Total Construction Management

Lean Quality in Construction Project Delivery The coming together of lean management and quality management thinking has taken place in organizations across many industries, including construction. Practices in procurement, design management and construction management are all evolving constantly. Managers need to understand these changes and how to react to them if they want to be successful….

Protecting yourself from within… think data assurance

The recent cyber attacks have got everyone talking about how to better protect themselves in terms of Windows updates, better software, stronger passwords, etc. You will only get so far with that approach. However, without the correct training, business processes and information governance, people will continue to be relatively blasé about data assurance. They will continue…

Redefining Quality for the London Underground

Background Last year provided an Interim Head of Quality for London Underground’s Capital Programmes Directorate (LU CPD).  The introduction to that project started when LU CPD engaged us to investigate the potential development of a ‘formal quality system.’ The purpose of the work was to improve project and programme delivery performance, specifically reviewing processes, systems…

Redefining Research Quality for this century

The landscape for research quality professionals is dramatically changing. Therefore Oakland Consulting is writing a series of six articles for the Research Quality Association (RQA, http://www.therqa.com). The RQA is the professional membership body providing status and visibility for individuals engaged in the quality of research concerning pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, chemicals and medical devices. These industry sectors face continuous…

Network Rail: a journey of digital transformation

Network Rail is involved in some of the most ambitious and diverse ventures in Great Britain – A transformation in anybody’s book. Richard Corderoy, CQP MCQI, explains in the attached Quality World Article how the Oakland Institute helped support the Infrastructure Projects Business Group (IP) to address governance, assurance and improvement. The group’s governance is now aligned to the core…

Reducing cost and protecting reputation

Whether you are a sales director who is fed up with dealing with excess volumes of customer complaints, a quality director struggling to fix the sources of failure or the finance director counting the cost, serial failure of manufactured products when installed in the field is a costly business. The costs of external failure (once…

Are your products reliable? – Three questions every CEO should get answered

Have you experienced product failures? In recent months we have seen several companies featured in the news because of product failures in the market place. This is often followed by reporting of poor financial results and/or tumbling share prices.  Warranty claims are a nightmare for many companies, the more so with social media highlighting and…