Edward Howell Galvanisers of Wolverhampton secured BS5750 accreditation in 1985, Investors in People award in 1991, and has boomed through recession with order books, performance and profits up 50% whilst competitors have suffered. What's the secret?

According to their Production Director Colin Leighfield, success is down to three words: management, quality and people; and not process, standard or procedures. The company is fast, focussed, flexible and friendly. It lives TQM day in and day out at three levels: Strategic Plan first, a quality culture through people development second, and QA procedures third.

"Business growth and quality result from good management and investing in human resources, training and people," Leighfield asserts. "Without those and a visible boss driving the business, you won't get anywhere. You have to know what people can do - and what they can be trained to do - and then match that through targets to universal standards."

"Quality is the first issue and people development is still the cheapest way of achieving it - consistently, flexibly and quickly - whilst the firm coping with rapid change is the second. All that has been endemic to this company for a long time."

"Standards? BS5750 and all the other procedures will never guarantee quality; increasingly, they are bureaucratic and too systems-based instead of results-based. If managers don't manage and management systems don't work, standards, however well researched or thought out and however much academics go on about them, will always be defective."

The key for the firm is the job - the engine of the business - he says, along with occupational competence which is structured, controlled and documented. This view led the firm to adopt MCI management competencies standards in 1989, by which he swears, and through its technique of Accreditation of Prior learning (APL) to push for employee NVQ recognition.

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