The applications of ISO 9000 in public organizations (Bağ-Kur example)

Economical and technological improvements together with the advances insocial life during the last 20 years led to changes in the area of publicadministration like many others and caused the formation of new administrativeroles and organizational structure which fulfills citizens? demands. Publicadministrations following private sector have been interested in approachesfocusing on quality so the process of Quality Management whose main principlesare continuous progress and individuals pleasure has began to take place.Total Quality Management originated in Japan and spread to the world.The organizations in desire of practicing this approach of quality managementusually, as a first step, set the Quality Management System defined by ISO9000standards and have it certified.Bağ-kur which provides social insurance service nationwide and serves to16 million citizens decided to practice Quality Management System in the year2001 and continued its study up to now.The importance of this study is to guide the public organizations in desireof building ISO9001 Quality Management System and make use of it. In thisstudy Quality Management System and its requirements are assessed incomparison to ISO9001:2000 standards. After exploring the formation of QualityManagement System in Bağ and application of standards the success of thiskursystem in Bağ is questioned.kurThis study is composed of five parts. The first three parts include literatureinvestigation. After setting necessary theoretical framework Quality ManagementSystem is explored in parallel to ISO 900!:2000 Standards ,and the need forquality approach in public sector together with the problems which can be arisenduring this process is stated. Last two parts include the structure of theorganization in which the study was carried out with its Quality ManagementSystem applications. The success of the mentioned practices is evaluatedthrough two questionnaires; one is for the employees of the organization, theother one is for the citizens the organization served.In the first part of the study, both the definitions of words related to qualityand quality approaches are expressed. In the second part the requirements ofISO 9001:2000 Standards are discussed. In the third part properties of publicorganizations together with the problems of the current organization and the needfor quality approaches in public administration are declared. If the problematicsituations which can arise in general public administration during the process canbe solved, the application of Quality Management System has many benefits.Inthis section of the study the benefits which can be obtained with the application ofaforementioned system is also discussed.In the fourth part the structure of Bağ-Kur and application of Quality Management System in Bağ-Kur are told.In the lastpart the success of ISO 9001 Quality Management System in Bağ-Kur isevaluated through analysis of the questionnaires given to the employees and thecitizens.The results of the study shows that citizens taking service from Bağ-Kurthink that Quality Management System has positive effects but still there aresome areas which should be improved. Similarly the employees also think thatthe system has positive outcomes but the huge amount of paper work haslessened the efficiency,so the outcomes are not at the expected level. If theproblems of practice can be overcome, Quality Management System can beused effectively and provide maximum benefits.Key Words:Quality Management System, historical development of quality, ISO 9001Standards, public administration, General Directory of Bağ-Kur, social securityservices, success of Quality Management System.