Share thisIt’s pretty easy to grasp the concept of quality when you are talking about various things such as consumer products. Take for example a car, where quality may be a quiet, smooth ride, flawless paint finish, plush leather seats, a rich sounding stereo, and, above all, one that never breaks down. The list by which the average consumer judges quality can be endless. Companies like Ford, General Motors, and Toyota spend tens of millions of dollars every year to measure, monitor, and control the quality of their processes and products. Other companies like JD Powers get paid tens of millions of dollars every year to report on quality of companies across a wide range of industries and their associated products or services. However when it comes to a lab animal research facility, there are no JD Powers reports, and measuring quality becomes a bit more challenging.
The Webster Dictionary defines quality as: “a high degree of excellence.” The definition alone is rather ambiguous until we define who the customer is and what is important to them. This is what we sometimes refer to as “the voice of the customer.”
Simple Question—Who’s Your Customer?
That’s easy for a vivarium as it’s obviously the investigators. Right? Well, the answer is “not necessarily.” Of course they are likely to be the main customer to any vivarium, since this operation serves in a support role for researchers and that’s a good place to start, but don’t put the blinders on and think that you have only one type of customer. The reality is that an organization can have many types of customers including both internal and external. In fact, when you take a close look into various operations and processes, we would venture to say that each and every person within that organization has at least two customers and is more than likely a customer themselves.
This may be a rather different concept so to keep things at a high level, let’s first talk about external customers. What would the voice of the customer be to a vivarium if that customer is an investigator? An institution or company may provide a service to investigators that come from different research areas, departments, and/or backgrounds. Like a car buyer, each one may have specific things that are important to them although, in general, high quality should include things like the following:
- Animal housing which is clean and proper per applicable regulatory and industry standards as well as that which meets investigator expectations
- Timely communication related to such things as animal receiving, maintenance, health and welfare
- Accurate accounting of per diem costs and special charges
- Quick turn-around time for either animals or samples based on specific investigator needs or requirements by study
Internal customers in a lab animal research facility would include such groups as animal husbandry, colony management, cage wash operations, and maintenance, to name a few. An example of an internal customer may be cage wash operations whose customers would be animal husbandry personnel, where the expectation of quality may include the following:
- Clean or sterile cages that meet certain cleanliness and bacteria standards which are available as required to support the cage change process
- Feed and bedding provided in the proper type and amounts necessary
- Ancillary equipment washed and ready for use in holding rooms