Achieving and exceeding customer satisfaction at Milliken

Describes how Milliken’s European Division became a customer‐focused, total quality driven management business. Highlights changes in management and organizational culture since 1981. The company now sees quality management as the responsibility of all staff. It has developed a flatter organization, with correspondingly larger spans of control and responsibility and authority exercised at much less senior levels. There are stronger relationships with both customers and suppliers, with a much smaller supplier base. Just‐in‐time manufacturing has been adopted to respond quickly to short‐term changes in demand while keeping work‐in‐progress stocks at the lowest possible level. The company encourages a culture of continuous improvement and, above all,of understanding and then meeting the needs of the customer.