ISO 9001 defines Quality system Standards, based on the premise that certain generic characteristics’ of management practices can be standardized and that a well-designed, well-implemented and carefully managed quality system provides confidence that the outputs will meet customer expectations and requirements.

The ISO 9001:2000 standards implemented at AKAL focus on developing documenting and implementing procedures to ensure consistency of operations and performance in service delivery processes with the aim of continual improvement and supported by fundamental principles of Total Quality.

Six Sigma is a business improvement methodology that maximizes shareholder value by achieving the fastest rate of improvement in customer satisfaction, cost, quality, process speed, and invested capital.

Implementation of Six Sigma at AKAL was a culture change that required every individual of the organization to alter the way they operated. They needed to stop relying on experience and tenure to guide them instead of requiring hard data to support their decision-making processes.

Six Sigma focused on identifying, quantifying, and driving out the errors in our business processes. The way it went about achieving results made it very different. The project identified a repetitive process that improved upon and then established metrics against which change could be measured.

In short, Six Sigma allowed us to reduce the variability in our products and services so that waste is reduced, efficiency is improved, and customer satisfaction is dramatically increased.

ITIL, the IT Infrastructure Library, is internationally recognised and is a constantly evolving set of best IT practices in IT service management the most widely-accepted approach described as a de facto standard. The ITIL framework at AKAL looked at managing IT services by dividing them into service delivery and support activities.

Service delivery is about making the standard of service match the requirements of end-users in terms of availability, cost, and performance.

Support activities help ensure that the service delivery infrastructure works properly and service level agreement (SLA) goals are met reliably and affordably.

An IT infrastructure has its hardware, software and services components which need to be known, co-ordinated and managed for the IT infrastructure to operate properly. ITIL is a formalised description of the best practices to use when doing this.

At AKAL it describes the best way to manage an IT infrastructure so that it focuses on delivering services that best meet the needs of its customers.