Many times organizations overlook the importance of collaboration and communication between their administrative departments. Work is completed by one department and “thrown over the wall” to the other department with total disregard for the needs or requirements of the department to whom the work is handed off.

With this type of mindset poor quality documents, information, and data leads to rework and wasted time which ultimately impacts the delivery of services or products to the external customer—“the one who pays the bills.”

Administrative departments need to create a new mindset in which they view downstream departments as their customers because they truly are their internal customers. This approach is remarkably evident if you think of the work you do as a process. In process thinking you receive an input from a supplier which you transform into a product or service for your downstream customer. Your goal as the processor department is to make sure your downstream customer is satisfied every single time.

Read our thought leadership presentation to learn more about internal customer satisfaction.

Willie Carter

Willie is a seasoned operations and quality expert with proven expertise in achieving breakthroughs in eliminating waste, process improvement, lean process improvement, lean transformation, quality management and continuous improvement. He is a trained facilitator (Juran Institute) who excels at getting staff to buy-in and sustain continuous process improvement objectives; change agent and team builder with over 40 years of operations and continuous and lean process improvement leadership. He has coached and mentored process improvement teams in Europe, Asia and North America.