Thursday 18 April 2013

Swans, Ducks and ISO9001

The river beside us has been very high recently, rising very quickly considering there has been quite a extended dry spell. Anyway extreme events seem to be a weather pattern now from extended very cold periods to very wet periods and the next surely has to be an extended warm (and dry) period. Musing about the uncertainty principle and others where an observed experiment will change the outcome I wonder if I have an experiment that tests if I expect a warm and sunny period it will happen and I'm also an observer what does that mean? Rain probably!
Various displays by a pair of swans on the river and I have posted a couple below, they seem such a loving pair. Only male mallards at the moment I guess all the females are on eggs. Sadly one poor tiny duckling passed on the river during the flood heading down river, no way back for that poor little guy.
Anyway, while chatting with other residents we were discussing that our fine park owners, Wyldecrest, are now ISO9001 certified. This demands very clear quality management systems and is quite difficult to summarise easily - but one statement is: "The quality policy is a formal statement from management, closely linked to the business and marketing plan and to customer needs." I suppose they have two levels of customer, those that buy a park home and those that pay them a pitch rental. One becomes the other on buying a home of course. Inevitably their focus is the buyer as a home has a nice profit margin and their other significant income from a home will be when someone sells to move on (10%) or unhappily someone dies, leaving an empty home that the relatives will sell (10% again). On a large park the pitch rental total will be significant but on a small park like ours it does not amount to very much income at all.
Well all this musing took us to the subject of maintenance on the park as there are some road drains that need the gulley emptied as during heavy rain the water does not drain away and large puddles form. So if a simple thing like this, just general maintenance looking after the infrastructure, you would think would be an expected expense. Well from what we hear things like this will not be done until the park generates some income from home sales. So as far as the other improvements that might help the park look more attractive to potential residents (like the rear retaining wall and screening that is needed) there is very little chance of this happening. It is a bit of chicken and egg situation with some of this I think.
How does all this fit in with ISO9001 and procedures and actions that are defined? More 'uncertainty principle' I might suggest.
Anyway, we may have some new residents in a new home soon so lets see what happens - and back to something much more appealing - the swans.