QMS & EMS London

It is a common process-improvement scenario: After a project team or a work group is formed, members have a series of productive meetings and workshops, but then nothing happens. How many times has it felt like there are great team dynamics in the conference room but when it comes time to execute change, no one acts? What drives these disconnects? Many people want to attribute these failures (and they are failures) to the quality methodologies used. It is not uncommon to hear, for example, that Six Sigma is too complex or that Lean works best in production environments. For every method there is an excuse. But the failures transcend industry, culture, education and reward structure. What is more frustrating about this “almost engaged,” “almost empowered” phenomenon is that the people participating believe, during the workshops, that they are doing everything right. They believe they are highly engaged and most outsiders would look in and agree.

In December 2008, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) signed an outsourcing agreement with facilities management and support services company Interserve. The financial scale and duration of the contract – around £750 million over 15 years – was not particularly remarkable, but the sustainability targets attached to the deal distinguished it from many other facilities management (FM) contracts. It also differed from typical FM contracts in that Interserve is also responsible for more strategic services, such as energy management.

Part one of our series (September 2014) looking at environment and sustainability standards focused on some of those associated with ISO 14001, the global benchmark for environment management systems. Part three of the series will focus on standards for auditing management systems and for reporting.

A private Orbital Sciences-built cargo launch to the International Space Station ended in a fiery explosion just seconds after liftoff Tuesday night (Oct. 28). Orbital's unmanned Antares rocket exploded in a brilliant fireball shortly after launching from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 6:22 p.m. EDT (2222 GMT), crashing back down to the launch pad in a flaming heap. The Antares was carrying Orbital's unmanned Cygnus spacecraft, which was toting 5,000 pounds (2,268 kilograms) of food, scientific experiments and other supplies on this flight — the third cargo mission to the space station under a $1.9 billion contract the company holds with NASA.

The global economy is heading towards a perfect storm of pressure on all fronts, according to a report on the environment and sustainability skills deficit recently published by IEMA. Only 13% of companies are fully confident that they have the skills to successfully compete in a sustainable economy.