Agua Fabrics: Success by applying ISO 9001

Agua Fabrics is a privately owned company based in London. The company has built its reputation in the healthcare, education, leisure and custodial markets by providing quality products and excellent service to customers for over 70 years.

The company has chosen to implement ISO 9001 because it is the most popular quality management system in the world today. With Agua, ISO 9001 seems to have become a suitable vehicle to prove that the company has processes to monitor and improve performance in a professional manner, especially in the exchange and distribution of textile products in their portfolio. On the other hand, ISO 9001 is also a testament to the guarantee of Agua’s reputation to customers.

Agua Fabrics acknowledges that changes to internal systems and processes were initially met with some resistance. Staff had concerns about the potential increase in administrative duties. However, benefits soon became apparent once the new systems were implemented which assisted with staff buy-in.

Benefits achieved

ISO 9001 certification is becoming a pre-requisite for many customers. Certification therefore meant new business opportunities and increased profits for Agua Fabrics. Adhering to the ISO 9001 framework enabled the company to simplify some internal processes and improve efficiency.

For example, the retrieval of data needed to follow up customer queries was made easier and quicker leading to improved customer relationships. Regular reporting on debtors reduced debtor days by five, which also impacted positively on cash flow.

Thanks to ISO 9001, the implementation of business meetings in just a few minutes has been realized. This makes the management team focus more on their goals and makes the exchange process more convenient. In addition, highlighting the importance of performance indicators in the meetings also helps the company optimize internal resources and constantly improve the results.

In the future

Agua will constantly improve its management system to bring better products and services to customers. At the same time, the company also wants to make full use of resources from within the company, taking it as a foundation to expand production and business activities and improve competitiveness in the market. The company also offered to continue to accompany BSI – the unit that supported Agua to apply ISO 9001 in the future.

Productivity and Quality Office