It all began with a chance meeting one Saturday morning in Netley Abbey. Florist Katie Mawson was walking out of her shop with her hands full of flowers, and she was unable to open the door of her van. Neil Peattie, who happened to be walking past at that moment, simply offered to open the van door for her, but one thing led to another and Katie was soon telling Neil all about how she was preparing for one of her busiest days of the year: Mother's Day. 

Neil listened with interest and offered Katie some advice. Two hours later, with a series of notes written on the back of paper normally used for wrapping flowers, Katie Mawson had been given a crash course in a couple of Lean Tools:

• 5S - A spontaneous and continuous improvement of working environment and working conditions
• 7 Wastes - Identifying unprofitable activity within your organisation

"At first, I was struggling to see how what Neil was telling me could be applied to a florist's shop in Netley Abbey. To be honest, I thought that he was slightly crazy! After walking Neil through a couple of processes such as making a bouquet of flowers, Neil was able to show me how some simple visual management tools could help me - I'm now confident that no time will ever be lost again looking for lost scissors! We'll also be using some of the techniques to help make beautiful bouquets in the most efficient way in the run up to Mother's Day."

- Katie Mawson, Owner of Katie Mawson Floral Design

If you are interested in learning more about Lean techniques and how they could benefit your business, please contact NPT Management Systems today.

Alternatively, if you are looking for a beautiful bouquet of flowers for Mother's Day (Sunday the 26th of March 2017), visit Katie Mawson Floral Design at 30 Station Road, Netley Abbey, Southampton, Hampshire, SO31 5AF.

Image Source: facebook.com/KatieMawsonFloralDesign

Do you frequently feel overwhelmed by the size of your to-do list? Are you stressed because, no matter how hard you work, there never seem to be enough hours in the day to address everything that needs addressing?

If so, you may just need to adjust your approach to time management. Here are 5 quick tips to help your working day feel like less of an uphill struggle:

• Prioritise! It's unlikely that all the tasks on your to-do list are equally urgent. Identify the most pressing matters and deal with them first before moving on to other things.
  
  
• Try to avoid multi-tasking. You might think that you can double your productivity by working on two things at once, but this rarely works as well as we'd like it to - you'll likely work faster and better if you focus on one thing at a time.
  
  
• Set time limits for yourself. Try to have a clear idea of how long each task on your list ought to take. Your allowance for each item doesn't necessarily have to be set in stone, but you should find that things get done more quickly when you've already told yourself that each task will only take an hour to complete.
  
  
• Don't be afraid to delegate if you can. If you have a team of employees or co-workers on hand, let them help you! It can sometimes be difficult to escape the 'only I can do this right' mindset and relinquish control of a task/project to someone else, but it's important to feel that you can trust your colleagues and allow them to shoulder some of your burden.
  
  
• Shut out distractions. You've probably found that many tasks end up taking far longer than they should because your workflow gets interrupted by little things - emails that you feel compelled to answer straight away, breaking news stories that you're keen to check up on, phone calls from clients with questions to ask. Some of these distractions are unavoidable, but if you're serious about managing your time more effectively, you need to do whatever you can to shut them out. Close all tabs that aren't relevant to the task at hand. Ask your colleagues to handle phone calls and emails where possible. And most importantly, forget about the other tasks on your list until you've completed the one you're currently addressing!

NPT Management Systems specialise in helping businesses implement quality management systems that improve efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction. Contact us for details.

It's said that many hands make light work, but in practice, this is only really true if those hands know how to work together as a team. When they don't, blithely throwing more people at a task may ultimately reduce the efficiency with which that task is completed.

If, as a business owner, you're finding that your staff aren't yet 'clicking' as a team, here are a few quick tips to help you improve this situation:

• Encourage communication. In the modern office, workers often sit at their desks wearing headphones, effectively shutting out everything and everyone around them. While music often helps people to concentrate on the job at hand, you may find that your employees work more effectively as a team when they take their headphones off and actually speak to one another. Teamwork involves communication - it's rarely just a case of dividing up the work and getting on with it individually.
  
  
• Make sure everyone knows their role. Every member of a team should have a unique role to play in the work that is to be done. Instead of simply setting several people a task and telling them to sort it out between themselves, begin by sitting everyone down and ensuring that everyone understands what they are supposed to be bringing to the table.
  
  
• Maintain an open dialogue and listen to complaints/concerns. It usually takes time for a group of people to gel as a team, so make sure that you're doing whatever you can to help during this process. Check in with your team regularly to ensure that everything is running smoothly, and speak to each individual on a regular basis, listening carefully to any issues they raise. If the team feel that one member isn't pulling his weight, or that another member is trying to micro-manage everybody else's contributions, then you can fix these problems through clear and honest communication.

NPT Management Systems are a team of expert ISO consultants based in the South of England.

We now offer a full recruitment service for Quality, Environmental and Health & Safety professionals.

It's been a long time since NPT Management Systems solely provided ISO 9001 consultancy and certification services. Though helping clients to become ISO accredited is still very much our speciality, we now offer a wide variety of services to clients throughout the South of England, including full recruitment services.

With great industry connections and knowledge of a wide variety of sectors, we at NPT are the perfect people to assist with your company's recruitment needs. Here's how we can help you:

• We can advertise your role to talented candidates across Hampshire, Dorset, Sussex and nearby
• Interested candidates will submit their CVs to us
• We'll pass the best candidates to you for final selection

And if you're a jobseeker on the hunt for a new career, we can help you too - submit your CV to us and we'll pass it on to some of the best businesses in your industry! We specialise in the Quality, Environmental and Health & Safety sectors, so if you're looking for work in these areas then be sure to get in touch.

If you'd like to find out more about our recruitment services for the Quality, Environmental and Health & Safety industries, please contact us today.

Looking to achieve ISO 9001:2008 certification for your organisation? If so, you may be interested to learn that this is no longer the latest version of the ISO 9001 standard. In fact, it was revised two years ago and superseded by ISO 9001:2015.

What happened to ISO 9001:2008?

ISO review their globally-recognised standards every few years in order to ensure that they are reflective of the current marketplace and its latest trends and technologies. In September 2015, they published ISO 9001:2015, a new revision of their well-known ISO 9001 standard for quality management systems.

Aside from being more user-friendly and simpler to understand than its predecessor, the 2015 edition brought the structure of the ISO 9001 standard into line with other management system standards (such as ISO 14001) to enable easier synchronisation. ISO 9001:2015 also places greater focus on leadership and risk management.

What does this mean for my business?

• If you do not yet hold ISO 9001 certification, this change simply means that you should now pursue ISO 9001:2015 certification instead of ISO 9001:2008 accreditation.
  
  
• If you are already certified under ISO 9001:2008 by a UKAS-accredited certification body, you have until the end of September 2018 to transition - if you have not migrated to ISO 9001:2015 by this time, your ISO 9001:2008 certification will become invalid. It is important to remember that it takes time to transition, so if you haven't yet started planning to transition to ISO 9001:2015, you should do so now.

Whether you are looking to migrate to ISO 9001:2015 or get your organisation certified for the first time, NPT Management Systems can help. We work with businesses of all sizes across all sectors, and we have a superb track record when it comes to ISO 9001 certification.

Contact us to discuss your requirements with one of our expert ISO 9001 quality consultants.