Eradicating Inconsistency

Orkin: Eradicating Inconsistency

Katherine Carlson

Scott Stuart

Matthew Boyd

Orkin is a pest control company which works to eliminate insects, rodents and other pests that may have a negative impact on human health and safety. The company was established in 1901 and has since grown to employ almost 8,000 people in over 400 locations. In addition to serving residential customers, over one-third of Orkin's business is conducted at commercial sites including hotels, hospitals, restaurants, and other establishments where insects and other pests can not be permitted. During the mid-1990's, Orkin began experiencing tremendous growth. This growth produced the realization that their existing business practices were causing service quality to be low, resulting in customers seeking pest control services from other companies. Orkin realized that they needed to change the way they did business and consequently spent nearly 10 years implementing an ISO 9001 quality management system throughout their company. (Orkin, 2013)

ISO 9001 is a system of standards which identify the parts that make up a quality management system. ISO, or the International Organization for Standardization, creates standards and regulations for companies to follow that will make the business more efficient. There are some basic principles that outline what it takes to be considered an ISO 9001 company and the benefits that come from being a certified ISO 9001 company. The main idea behind ISO 9000 certification is to focus on the customer. Secondly, management must be driven and strive to make things better. Another main facet of ISO 9001 is auditing. The program relies on continual review to make sure that processes are working properly and to identify where changes may need to be made. (ISO, 2012)

There are two main reasons Orkin wanted to implement ISO 9001. Many of the large businesses Orkin served were adopting ISO 9001 into their own business practices, these companies became more interested in doing business with other organizations that shared a similar concern with providing high quality. This fit with Orkin's goals in that they were already researching ways to make their service more consistent and of higher quality. These two reasons pushed them to adopt ISO 9001 standards. Of the 400 Orkin branches, some served commercial customers only, and some served both residential and commercial customers. Initially, the branches serving commercial customers only became ISO 9001 certified, leaving the other branches behind. Since each commercial branch was responsible for implementing ISO quality service management individually, this was becoming a very expensive method that included vast amounts of paperwork. To add to the expense, an auditor that worked for Orkin and a third-party auditor had to travel to these branches and evaluate their processes. This was confusing for customers because it was difficult for them to know which Orkin branches were ISO 9001 certified and which ones were not. (Udell, Buffington, 2012)

Individually implementing ISO 9001 was not providing Orkin with the results they wanted; they even managed to lose one of their major contracts during this time. Orkin's next step was to create a company wide quality assurance team, which would allow all 400 branches to be ISO 9001 certified, eliminating the inconsistencies that had been present during the previous implementation attempt. In early 2003, the company wide implementation of a quality management system standardized the way each branch operated, cutting costs tremendously. Orkin created and distributed a manual to each of the branches clearly outlining how to operate and a rubric by which each company would be assessed. The branches were evaluated on training requirements, operational standards, state and federal pest-control laws and regulations, documentation protocols, and service protocols. (Udell, Buffington, 2012)

The implementation of the quality assurance team was only the first step to getting Orkin to the level that management wanted and that its customers expected. As predicted, observing