SDO and LGU San Juan City Collaborate to Host SDO Marikina City’s ISO Benchmarking Journey
The delegates of SDO Marikina City explored and benchmarked the outstanding feat of SDO San Juan City in internationally standardizing its systems and processes in the arena of service excellence and customer satisfaction through the latter’s LGU-backed ISO 9001: 2015 certified status which was conferred in December of 2018. This milestone benchmarking activity of a bigger Schools Division Office took place last March 14, 2019 at the Conference Hall of SDO San Juan City.
This external benchmarking activity was aptly dubbed “Learning Engagement with the Marikina Champions” to capture the unparalleled contribution of the leader of the visiting division, Dr. Joel T. Torrecampo, in solidifying SDO San Juan’s place in the realm of educational governance.
The delegation of SDO Marikina, composed of 21 officials from various functional divisions/offices, district supervisors and school heads, marveled at the humbling experiences shared by Mrs. Flordelisa D. Pereyra, OIC-ASDS and prime mover of the ISO certification efforts of SDO San Juan, Mrs Lilian V. Bañares, Records Officer and Mr. Cristopher E. Cabradilla, ISO Secretariat. They relished the mind-boggling and tedious tasks they encountered along the way leading to the tunnel of lights when ISO 9001: 2015 certification was finally achieved. Thereafter, they toured the various SDO San Juan offices/divisions to gauge the ‘ISO-transformed’ set up and sought answers from their office-counterparts how the systems and processes operate the ISO way.
Dr. Alejandro G. Ibañez, OIC-SDS, stressed in his Welcome Remarks - “Achieving this status is a lifestyle in its purest sense and that everyone’s brand of work exudes in the performance of our daily functions. But nothing is perfect, of course. We just operate in a healthy and positive environment in order to achieve customer satisfaction. Everyday, we keep growing as an organization.”
The highlight of the activity unfolded when the visitors were treated with a surprise visit in the most accommodating offices in San Juan City- the Office of the beloved Mother of the City, Madam Guia G. Gomez, wherein all were warmly welcomed by the Mayor herself. Their visit was accentuated with pleasantries and solid San Juan hospitality that nobody could ever forget. Mrs. Jeannete Coroza, Principal of Marikina Science High School, said “This is too much for a Benchmarking Activity to happen. I am so grateful for the kind of hospitality the City of San Juan City has accorded to us.” Later on that same day, the Marikina officials were treated for a sumptuous lunch at Gloria Maris Restaurant.
And to cap the day with further learning package, the group was then brought to the newly-opened El Deposito Museum and the Museo ng Katipunan where they relived the various revolutionary struggles of our heroes that took place right in the heart of the historic place of Pinaglabanan, San Juan City.
The bedazzled and highly contented benchmarking SDO Marikina officials left San Juan City with a promising commitment to duplicate SDO San Juan City’s achievement. “We could definitely duplicate what SDO San Juan achieved. What we probably could not is the Solid hospitality that only San Juan people could deliver”, said Dr. Torrecampo. “On behalf of the Mayor of Marikina, Honorable Marcy Teodoro and the men and women of SDO Marikina, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Mam Guia G. Gomez, Dr. Al Ibañez and the entire SDO San Juan Family”, Dr. Torrecampo added before heading back home.
The ISO 9001:2015 is an internationally recognized Quality Management System and is based on the scheme of planning, doing, checking and acting that provides a process-oriented approach to document and review the structure, responsibilities and procedures required to achieve effective quality management in an organization (Cianfrani and West, 2008).
Article written by:
Jay F. Macasieb (ASP II / Research Coordinator)
