A quality management system (QMS) is a collection of business processes focused on consistently meeting customer requirements and enhancing their satisfaction. It is aligned with an organization's purpose and strategic direction. It is expressed as the organizational goals and aspirations, policies, processes, documented information, and resources needed to implement and maintain it. Early quality management systems emphasized predictable outcomes of an industrial product production line, using simple statistics and random sampling. By the 20th century, labor inputs were typically the most costly inputs in most industrialized societies, so focus shifted to team cooperation and dynamics, especially the early signaling of problems via a continual improvement cycle. In the 21st century, QMS has tended to converge with sustainability and transparency initiatives, as both investor and customer satisfaction and perceived quality are increasingly tied to these factors. Of QMS regimes, the ISO 9000 family of standards is probably the most widely implemented worldwide – the ISO 19011 audit regime applies to both and deals with quality and sustainability and their integration.
The ISO 9000 family is a set of five quality management systems (QMS) standards by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that help organizations ensure they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service. ISO 9000 deals with the fundamentals of QMS, including the seven quality management principles that underlie the family of standards. ISO 9001 deals with the requirements that organizations wishing to meet the standard must fulfill. ISO 9002 is a model for quality assurance in production and installation. ISO 9003 for quality assurance in final inspection and test. ISO 9004 gives guidance on achieving sustained organizational success.
Quality management ensures that an organization, product or service consistently functions well. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only on product and service quality, but also on the means to achieve it. Quality management, therefore, uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality. Quality control is also part of quality management. What a customer wants and is willing to pay for it, determines quality. It is a written or unwritten commitment to a known or unknown consumer in the market. Quality can be defined as how well the product performs its intended function.
Nawaloka Hospital traded as Nawaloka Hospitals PLC, was established in 1985 by Deshamanya H. K. Dharmadasa. Nawaloka Hospital is one of Sri Lanka's largest private hospitals and has created a chain of hospitals across the country. It was founded by H.K. Dharmadasa in 1985. It is also the first hospital in Sri Lanka to introduce Intensive Care Units, Coronary Care Units, Laparoscopic Surgery and Thoracic Surgery.
ISO 22000 is a food safety management system by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) which is outcome focused, providing requirements for any organization in the food industry with objective to help to improve overall performance in food safety. These standards are intended to ensure safety in the global food supply chain. The standards involve the overall guidelines for food safety management and also focuses on traceability in the feed and food chain.
Naval and Maritime Academy (NMA), Trincomalee, is the naval academy of the Sri Lanka Navy, and is located within SLN Dockyard, Trincomalee. It received university status in 2001 under the leadership of Commodore SR Samaratunga.
Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklifts, Inc. is a group of multinational companies that were formed under a joint venture between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Caterpillar Inc. in order to manufacture and market trucks. The group manufactures and distributes Cat Lift Trucks, Mitsubishi Forklift Trucks and Jungheinrich warehouse products to the material handling industry.
John Keells Holdings PLC (JKH) is one of the largest conglomerate companies in Sri Lanka. From managing hotels and resorts in Sri Lanka and the Maldives to providing port, marine fuel and logistics services to IT solutions, manufacturing of food and beverages to running a chain of supermarkets, tea broking to stock broking, life insurance and banking to real estate, the Group of companies has made its presence felt in virtually every major sphere of the economy.
Maliban Biscuit Manufactories, is one of the largest manufacturers, distributors and marketers of bakery products in Sri Lanka. Maliban is a privately owned limited liability company.
Vestergaard is a company headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland that manufactures public health tools for people in developing countries. Founded as Vestergaard Frandsen in 1957 as a uniform maker, the company evolved into a social enterprise making products for humanitarian aid in the 1990s. It is now best known for inventing the LifeStraw water filter and the PermaNet mosquito net.
Bonn Group of Industries is food company based in Ludhiana Punjab, India. Founded in 1985, it produces a variety of food products including breads, biscuits, cakes and cookies. These products are sold in both Indian and International markets. The company is registered under ISO 22000 – 2005 Certification by TUV as well as ISO 9001-2008 by TNV Certification. Operations are approved by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The founder and chairman of the company is Manjit Singh. The Group expanded into many units in northern region of India with their headquarters in Jhabewal, Chandigarh Road, Ludhiana. The factory works are handled by two units running under the names of Bonn Food Industries and Bonn Nutrients Pvt. Ltd.
SMAK is a popular and one of the largest beverage, natural fruit juice, fruit preserves, snack and dairy products brand in Sri Lanka. The brand is owned by Country Style Foods Private Limited and was established in 1981. The company holds over 70% market share in non-carbonated beverages category in Sri Lanka.
Kemet International Limited, based in Maidstone, Kent UK, is involved with precision lapping and polishing technology using diamond media, composite lapping plates and precision lapping and polishing machines to produce polished finishes with close tolerances. In 1998 Kemet was Britain's largest supplier and manufacturer of diamond compounds and slurries.
Heladiv, publicly traded as HVA Foods PLC, is a tea company based in Sri Lanka.
Brandix Apparel Limited is an apparel manufacturer headquartered in Sri Lanka. It is considered to be the leading apparel manufacturing firm in the country. The company has branches in the United States of America, United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Mauritius, and the Cayman Islands. Brandix has a crucial role in the Sri Lankan economy by being the main contributor to the Gross Domestic Production. It is the single largest employer in Sri Lanka's export sector and the highest foreign exchange earning company.
Unilever Sri Lanka is a Sri Lankan consumer goods company located in Colombo. It is wholly owned by Unilever, a British multinational consumer goods company. Its products include food, beauty products, personal care, pharmaceuticals, and baby products. Unilever Sri Lanka was established in 1938 as Lever Brother Ceylon Limited. In 1972, it was renamed Unilever Sri Lanka. The company has been ranked as Most Valuable and Strongest Brand and Most Respected Entity. The company has over two dozen brands that are market leaders in Sri Lanka since the 1940s. Unilever operates from a factory complex in an industrial zone of Horana since 2012. About 96% of the company's products are manufactured locally, and more than twenty of its brands are exported outside Sri Lanka.
Hela Apparel Holdings PLC branded as Hela Clothing is a holding company in Sri Lanka that is engaged in the apparel industry. The company supplies to a number of brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, and Michael Kors. Hela Apparel Holdings operates four design centres in Sri Lanka, the United States, France and the United Kingdom. The company have eleven manufacturing plants, seven in Sri Lanka, and two each in Ethiopia and Kenya. The company is one constituent of the S&P Sri Lanka 20 Index since June 2022.
Haycarb PLC is a coconut shell-based activated carbon manufacturing company in Sri Lanka. Haycarb was incorporated in 1973. The company controls 16% of the world's market share. Haycarb operates manufacturing plants in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia, while marketing offices are located in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
Mahaweli Reach Hotel, traded as Mahaweli Reach Hotels PLC, is a five-star luxury hotel in Kandy, Sri Lanka. The hotel is located on the banks of the Mahaweli River, hence the name. The hotel was founded in 1973 and in 1982, it was listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange. Mahaweli Reach became the first five-star hotel in Kandy in 2000. Universal Enterprises, a Maldivian resort operator has been the controlling shareholder of the hotel since 2002. Mahaweli Reach, a hotel with colonial architecture, was designed by Ashley de Vos.
The Swadeshi Industrial Works PLC is a personal care products manufacturing company in Sri Lanka. The company became the first local soap manufacturing company when the company was incorporated in 1941. Swadeshi is a listed company on the Colombo Stock Exchange. Brand Finance calculated Swadeshi Industrial Works' brand value to be LKR543 million in 2022 and ranks the company as 85th most valuable brand in Sri Lanka.
