AG Consulting Enters 1999 With Prestigious ISO 9001 Certification; Rare Designation Identifies Organizations That Provide Consistently Superior Quality Outcome.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 1, 1999--AG Consulting announced it has received ISO 9001 certification from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), a worldwide, non-governmental federation of national standards bodies representing approximately 100 countries.

AG Consulting is one of the few consulting firms worldwide to earn the quality designation. For an increasing number of companies, ISO 9001 certification has become a condition for doing business because its meticulous methodology requirements help ensure a consistently high-quality outcome.

To receive ISO 9001 certification, AG Consulting was subject to a rigorous audit of 20 key elements that relate to specific aspects of satisfying customers. Auditors collected objective evidence that demonstrated AG Consulting's compliance to ISO standards, including comprehensive documentation covering any and all instructional material used to communicate how an operation should be performed in order to satisfy customer requirements. Because ISO 9001 registration is dependent on periodic follow-up audits, AG Consulting must actively maintain its quality systems.

The city and county of Denver recently called upon AG Consulting when it came time to replace its outdated administrative systems and methodologies with a state-of-the-art, integrated financial/personnel management system from PeopleSoft. City and county officials evaluated several consulting firms before selecting AG Consulting.

"AG was the only ISO 9001 certified consulting group," said Les Berry, deputy auditor and project director for the city and county of Denver. "As a result, we knew they would provide us with excellent documentation that would serve us well into the future."

AG Consulting continuously measures its success by client and employee satisfaction. To that end, AG has extended its quality requirements beyond those mandated by ISO to ensure that all functional areas of the organization -- including resource management, training, marketing, accounting, and more -- are delivering the highest quality of service possible.

"We have created an enterprise blueprint that is based on what we called a Functional Enterprise Model," explained Larry Stacy, director, Continuous Improvement Group at AG's Atlanta office.

"This blueprint pinpoints each process in every core area of the company and defines those processes in relation to our mission of exceeding customer expectations. Consequently, by following this blueprint of standards, AG Consulting is able to provide superior results with every project."

About ISO 9000

ISO 9000 is a series of individual but related international standards on quality management and quality assurance. ISO 9001 is the most comprehensive quality system model in the 9000 series; it covers design, installation, implementation, and servicing systems.

About AG Consulting

AG Consulting, Inc. (AG) is an international team of management and information technology consultants focused on the areas of HR and Finance. AG's consultants apply proven methodologies and decades of collective experience to help clients achieve their strategic goals. The San Francisco-based company is a division of Automatic Data Processing (ADP), with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Madrid, Frankfurt, London, Paris, and Toronto. Visit the AG Consulting web site at http://www.agconsult.com.