Service Validation & Customer Satisfaction

A service validation is a comprehensive examination meant to confirm that an existing, new or changed service performs as intended. However, when we talk about section 8.5.1 of the ISO 9001:2015 the difference between service/design validation and service/design verification can be confusing.
 
Service/design validation processes, specifically, are quality control processes that demonstrate product/service consistency, quality, and durability. They ensure that the service/design does what it is intended to do.
 
This aspect of quality management is particularly important in situations “where the resulting output cannot be verified by subsequent monitoring or measurement.” One example of where service/design validation is critical would be a welding process where the strength of each individual weld cannot be tested without damaging the product.

These sort of real-world necessities create quite a bind; how do you test without testing?  To resolve this, service providers need to create test environments where they can perform their service process, in spaces that duplicate the workspace and conditions where the service will be performed. Once the service environment is duplicated, the tests perform a full check on each step of the service, or creation of the product: You have to perform the service on a test platform, where each step of the service can be examined, measured, and evaluated.

In order to achieve this kind of testing, providers should consider adopting practices such as:
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• Service validation tests designed and carried out by the people who haven’t been involved in the design and development process.
• The criteria for passing/failing of a test should be documented in an SDP before any testing.
• Each test environment should be restored to its original state before starting a new test.
• A risk-based testing approach should be adopted to reduce the risk to the service or product. This means stress testing until failure, in order to record and report failure thresholds.
• Service validation and testing need to create, catalog and maintain a library of test models, cases, and data which can be re-used. This is important for being able to re-perform service/product validation during the service lifetime.
• The creation of a quality management system that ensures consistency across all platform and personnel, in order to ensure test conditions can be adequately recreated.

Service validation and testing ensures that the service or product delivers the expected outcomes for the customer. In addition to controlling quality, service validation testing provides opportunities to identify ways in which services and products can be improved, and efficiencies can be found.

For more information on how Accupoint Software can help your business create and control service/product validation processes, please contact us today.