Internal Customers and Suppliers

What are internal customers and suppliers ?

Anybody doing any kind of work is performing a process. A process can be defined as the action of transforming what is received to what is produced.

Everyone in a typical company works in one or several processes, all having outputs and receivers (customers) of this output as shown below.

Typically in many companies, the output from one process is 'thrown over the fence' to the next process or customer. The customer then has to accept this and if it's not right either has to go back to his 'supplier' to get what he wanted in the first place, or push the problem up to the next 'customer'. This results in several things:

  1. The company culture accepts that some problems are a part of life, and internal customers lower their expectations of the quality of product that is supplied to them. People do not take pride in the Quality of their product.
  2. A significant amount of time is wasted dealing with problems which should not have been there in the first place
  3. Sub standard product or services are delivered to the last link in the chain, the customer

One of the main reasons for problems is poor communication between suppliers and customers, both internal and external. The number of different functions within a typical company is shown on the audit map. The type of person, the language they use, the ways they work, the things that interest them and the time they have to spend on each job differs for example, between salesmen, engineers and accountants. No group should be regarded as any more important than the next - each must be regarded as part of a coordinated whole, for example as each member of an orchestra plays a specific and timely part in the operation of the whole group.

The departments and functions within a company operate as a system. Each element of this system receives from one or more elements and gives to one or more elements. If the handover from one element to another is late, incomplete or incorrect, then other elements are affected. The ultimate focus for all problems is the customer. The (draft) diagram below shows this is typically organised for Project Delivery.

Sucessful companies survey their customers to understand what they can do better to get more business. Customer satisfaction must be sought both with external customers (the ones that pay the company) and with our internal customers.

The customer needs must be understood. This is not always straightforward especially when much of the communication between functions is not face to face and relies on faxes, emails and telephone.

Click on the button for an example of not understanding, and responding to customers needs. It also illustrates the need to encourage people to use their initiative and for documented procedures to allow this flexibility.