JEDDAH, 16 February 2007 — Omar A. Balubaid Automotive Limited Co., a major General Motors and Peugeot dealer in Saudi Arabia and member of the Balubaid Group, received ISO 9001:2000 certificate from Bureau Veritas, at a ceremony here yesterday.
The event held at Radisson SAS Royal Suites hotel was attended by Balubaid Group’s Executive Vice President Khalid O. Balubaid, Ahmed Balubaid, senior vice president for Balubaid Automotive, a delegation from Bureau Veritas, and Balubaid’s top management, automotive department heads, and ISO’s steering committee and task team members.
“ISO 9001:2000 certificate is Balubaid Automotive’s first milestone achievement in heading toward the business excellence over next five years,” Khalid Balubaid told a press conference.
Balubaid Automotive is one of the few automotive dealers of GM and Peugeot to receive ISO 9001:2000 certificate in the Kingdom from Bureau VERITAS, he added.
Balubaid has qualified for this certificate through the adoption of a quality management system that is in accordance with the requirements of the international standard ISO 9001:2000.
It established a quality management system with all of its regularity, organizational and documentary requirements to get the ISO certificate.
“Balubaid puts all of its resources for the ongoing continual improvement of performance to meet the requirement of the quality management system which includes the company’s eight management principles and goes in line with the common quality policy of Balubaid Group of companies,” he added. These principles include focusing on customer’s current and future needs, leadership to achieve objectives and targets, involvement with clients, activation of methods and processes to achieve more efficient results when the resources and activities are put as working tools, establishment of an interrelated process between the group to achieve the goals, ongoing improvement of performance, factual approach for decision-making and the creation of a mutual beneficial relationship between Balubaid and their suppliers to enhance capabilities of both parties.
The company provides professional training to the staff to improve its administrative and technical skills. In addition to conducting continuous improvements to reach the desired goals through team participation and measuring of these procedures, it conducts monitoring of the continual improvement in the quality management system.
Bruno Ferreyra, Bureau Veritas’ regional chief executive for the Middle East, said “this is the first step toward meeting the requirements of the company’s clients, achieving mutual beneficial interest for the company and its suppliers, and executing its advancement and development program more effectively.”
Bureau Veritas is an independent certification body using the accreditation certificate number 008 of UKAS Quality Management, he added.
