‘Reading’ Customers Yields Volumes of Success for Concordia Publishing House

Concordia Publishing House (CPH) is the St. Louis, Mo.-based publishing arm of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). CPH was founded in 1869 to provide members of the LCMS with Christian ministry resources for worship, education, and nurturing of their faith. Today, the company provides over 8,000 products in a variety of formats and languages. CPH has a workforce of 247 employees and revenues of $35 million.

Bound to Quality Processes

  • CPH uses Voice-of-the-Customer (VOC) procedures to gather input from customers for compliments, product ideas, and complaints. Core Product Teams analyze customer data, prioritize product/service offerings, and design products to meet customer requirements and exceed their expectations.
  • CPH’s Vendor Certification Program rates vendor performance at bronze, silver, and gold levels for metrics such as product quality, timeliness of delivery, and overall performance. Scores are shared with vendors semi-annually; immediate feedback is provided to acknowledge excellent performance or document problems. The percentage of vendors moving from bronze to silver level has nearly doubled since 2009 and the number of gold vendors has been consistent at 70 percent since 2009.
  • In CPH’s distribution area, the company’s “Pick-to-Light” packing system yields a 99.85 percent accuracy level for orders shipped.
  • CPH encourages work process improvement through numerous initiatives, including training employees as Baldrige Examiners and/or continuous quality improvement (CQI) representatives within their departments. The total number of Examiners and CQI representatives has increased from about 10 in 2008 to almost 50 in 2011 in an organization with just under 250 employees.

Read the entire article at https://www.nist.gov/baldrige/concordia-publishing-house