Experience ISO Excellence
Rob Kantner answers your questions:
- Typical problems implementing ISO systems
- How to motivate executive management?
- Dealing With the Tax Man
- Are We Registered Yet?
- Doing it the Hardest Possible Way
- What the Heck is PPAP Doing in ISO??
- Auditors Writing Documents?
- Who's the Boss?
- Legal Quality
- ISO 9000 For Small Service Firms?
- The Heavy Lifters
- The First Big Mistake
- Leave Out the Sales People?
- Hi-O, Silver
- Can We Leave Out the Accountants?
- What's An "ISO 9000 Implementor"?
Typical problems implementing ISO systems (9/14/05)
What are some problems faced during the implementation of a management system like ISO 9001, ISO 14001, etc.?
- Insufficient management support.
- Unrealistic expectations.
- Implementing "for show."
- Useless metrics.
- Overdocumentation.
How to motivate executive management? (12/1/04)
(All spelling actual): The executive mgmt level is currently of the additude that iso is just a waste of time. however they do not realize the benefits of iso in terms of improved quaility and reduced cost due to more efficient process implimentation. i am a new lead auditor and im trying to convey these benefits in a meaningfull way. how can i be more effective in motivating the executive mgmt to be more responsive to the iso system?
When top management does not perceive the benefits of their ISO system, it could be because one (or more) of the following are the case:
- They are not sufficiently involved in it. This may stem from a weak management review process, one that either does not involve the true executive management, or is a whitewash / rote exercise.
- Communication in general about the system is weak or nonexistent. Success stories need to be publicized within the organization; ditto for results of audits (internal and external), corrective/preventive action, etc.
- Most likely, there are not appropriate process / system metrics in place. Measuring the right things demonstrates improvement, traceable to the quality management system, in irrefutable form. Many companies skirt the measurement / analysis / improvement requirements, or plug in a couple of token metrics that are meaningless or stem from questionable data gathering, or smother the process by measuring too many things.
As to what you personally can do about it, I don't know that there's much you can do, except to continue to do a great and diligent job in your audits. Audits, when properly done, are the engine of implementation and improvement of the system -- assuming somebody upstairs is paying attention.
Dealing with the Tax Man
Uncertainty exists as to the tax treatment of the ISO 9000 implementation costs. In your experience, has the IRS mandated capitalization of these costs, or can they be currently deducted?
The costs can be expensed. See the relevant Internal Revenue Service bulletin here.
Are We Registered Yet?
I have been asked to find out by my company if we are ISO 9000 or QS 9000 certified. Before I can do this could you provide me a brief summary of what each standard entails. If you could provide this as soon as possible, it would be greatly appreciated.
According to the Registered Companies Directory, no (Company) site is registered ("certified") to ISO 9000 or QS-9000. You would not want to register to QS-9000 unless you are supplying products / services directly to a General Motors, Ford, or Chrysler manufacturing organization (and even then, considering the kind of business I believe you are in, you would not want to). ISO 9000 or the upcoming telecommunications quality standard would be the appropriate route for you.
The best way to find out what's involved is to get a copy of the ISO 9000 standard itself and compare your processes with the requirements to see the extent to which you already meet them. You can get this by ordering it from asq.org. For help, you could hire a consulting firm (such as mine) to do a "compliance audit" of your processes and then give you a report that spells out what the compliance gaps are and what would be involved in fixing them so you could then get registered to the Standard.
Doing it the Hardest Possible Way
Mr Kantner, I was prompted to contact you after you mentioned in one of you responses something abut hating to see good people burnt out in impossible QA tasks. ( I cant remember the exact wording ) I am a recent graduate and have been hired as Head of a new Quality Assurance Dept in a medium-small company. The QA Dept. reports to the Software Engineering department Head who sigs-off or rejects any QA proposals. Feedback is minimal in general to QA issues - as far as I can tell most appear to percieve any slight changes as increasing workload.( although its not overtly stated ) Appart from the top man in the company who would like to see us going for ISO 9000 certification within a year, I seem the only one who is pushing the quality issues in terms of fully understanding exactly how each department functions and communicates with the other depts. and comming up with ideas on placing tracable processes into each department. I am attempting to write the companies QA plan and am doing so with no real direction from management. ( how will it be adopted if there is no real input -even in the first drafts I don't know) Based on your experiences I would be very interested to hear your opinion on just how effective you think someone can be in this situation can be and what can be achieved - What measures would you feel are needed to try and get things moving in a forward direction beacuse it feels like little has changed since I have arrived and I am constantly waiting for people to get back to me. I am beginning to wonder whether I am the right person for the job. Sincerely, frustrated.
I think you've got a thankless and almost impossible task. Without top management commitment, the quality system can never be effectively implemented. Without their ongoing involvement (which seems to be the case here), it can't even be all that meaningful. It looks to me like you've been recruited to cobble together a paperwork facade.
The issue isn't whether you are qualified or not. The most qualified person in the world could not be effective in the environment you face. The issue is: Does top management "mean it" or not? If they don't -- if all this is is an effort to fob it off -- then your chances of success are dim at best.
I've seen this before. Unfortunately, in varying degrees, it happens a lot. I suggest that you make a list of the specific things you need for top management to do to support you in accomplishing the objectives they have set for you. You need their backing, ongoing involvement, and support; you need access to people (and the use of their time); you may need other resources. If you've been plugging away at this for a while, you have a pretty clear idea what you need to move forward. Go to them with that.
If the reaction is simply to blame you for being ineffective, then you need to reconsider the whole proposition. It's a team effort, not a one man band. And the team has to be led by the people on top.
What the Heck is PPAP Doing in ISO??
hello Rob, i am currently working on implementing ISO9000 in a small company, but one of our customers is asking for PPAP (production part approval process) re QS 9000 level 3, i know this is automotive but is there a similar thing in ISO ie. what is PPAP´.
PPAP is "production part approval process." It is a process by which you provide to your customer documentation about your process (including sample parts, sometimes) confirming that you can meet their specifications. There are several different levels of PPAP.
To learn more, go to the AIAG (Automotive Industry Action Group) web site and order the PPAP manual. It tells you enough about PPAP to choke a horse.
Auditors Writing Documents?
Does it make sence for internal auditors to be involved in the implementation of quality procedures/processes? To my way of thinking, the auditors should be somewhat removed from the implementation process so they can be objective when assessing conformance.
I see nothing wrong with having internal auditors involved in implementation of procedures. In effect they're doing that as part of the audit process, anyway. Objectivity is more or less assured by the independence requirement, so that should be no problem.
That said, it's also important for the audit team to be diverse -- i.e. not all management / supervision. You want hourly people, production people, "worker bees" too -- from all levels and processes in the company.
Who's the Boss?
should the q-manager report to the general manager, or could he also report to business unit manager? Could there be any problems with an audit?
With the information you have given me (scant), I see no problem with the quality manager reporting to the general manager or to the business unit manager. In general, the quality manager (management representative) should report to either the highest authority in the registered location, or pretty near the top. A level down won't hurt; 5 or 6 levels won't pass the "smell test."
Legal Quality
I am a lawyer in Ontario who recently started my own independent law practice. I am looking into the prospects of applying for ISO 9001 certification (small professional service firm) for the purposes of being on the leading edge, the only law firm with certification; a way to market myself and target companies; to set myself apart from the rest of the law firms. How practical is this? Are you familiar with any law firms that have obtained certification? If so, can you comment on the results?
I think it is very practical. I don't personally know of law firms that have done this. But the "Registered Company Directory" lists one Canadian law firm that is registered to ISO 9001. Interestingly, the directory lists no law firms registered in the USA. I have read in articles that "many" law firms in the UK are registered (they've had the Standard since 1979).
I implemented the Standard in a consulting firm and it was very beneficial to them. I am in the process of implementing ISO 9002 in my own consulting firm now.
I think implementing would be helpful to you for all the reasons you cite. (Except that you would not be the FIRST in North America -- but certainly among the first!) Most of all, I think an ISO 9001 system will help you run your business better. It is to operations what a good business plan is to finances -- helps you to know where you are and how to get where you want to be.
ISO 9000 For Small Service Firms?
Hi, my name is Doug and I work for a facilities consulting company. We do project management, engineering, permit servicing, AutoCad drawings and basically anything a customer needs as far as their facility goes. We are in the service industry and do not provide any products. We are looking into implementing ISO 9000, but are wondering where to start. Also is ISO 9000 good for a small start up company (six employees) that just provides facility services? I hope to hear from ya soon, and thanks for your time.
I am a believer in the value of ISO 9000, and have seen it successfully implemented in organizations of all kinds and all sizes. So yes, I think it would be good for the company you describe. I implemented a system in an 8-person consulting firm (purely services) and am now in the process of implementing it in an even smaller firm (mine).
Best way to start is to learn as much as you can. That means reading books. Go to any decent bookstore and you'll find upward of 20 books about ISO 9000. Best thing is to start with something very fundamental.
While doing that, you could start writing down exactly how you do things in your firm. This can form the basis for the procedures that you'll be developing later.
The Heavy Lifters
An SME (100 employees) making fasteners for the motor trade how many people would you expect to comprise and from what areas of the business? What's a rough idea of time for accreditation for qs9000? I am only at the thesis stage at present.
The core team (quality steering team) ought to be a half dozen key managers at most, representing a cross section of the company.
They are not the only people involved; ultimately everyone in the company is involved at one level or another.
As to timing, this can only be a wild shot in the dark based on experience. It depends so much on a. commitment of management, b. availability of resources, and c. the state of existing quality processes. But for QS-9000, as a typical matter,you're looking at 12-20 months to get the job done in a firm of that size. This is with expert help. If you're going it alone, it'll take substantially longer.
The First Big Mistake
What is the step that is most overlooked at the beginning of implementing quality procedures/ISO 9000 standards?
Deciding on the firm's quality policy, quality objectives, and method of measuring progress toward achieving quality objectives. For the quality policy, most companies end up adopting a very vague, mushy, white-bread, meaningless, and useless cluster of nice-sounding words that make them sound just like everyone else. Whereas, the Standard requires that the policy must be relevant to the needs and expectations of customers and to the company's corporate objectives. It's important to have a specific and meaningful quality policy statement because the whole rest of the ISO 900x system is supposed to be aimed at helping the company to meet that policy.
Ditto the objectives. At the outset, top management should decide in specific terms what they want the system to achieve for them. And at the same time they must establish the method they are going to use to measure their progress toward achieving those objectives. This is how you tell if the ISO 900x system is doing you any good --giving you a return on your investment.
Leave Out the Sales People?
We are defining the scope of our registration to cover our operations facility. This facility houses our distribution, purchasing, product returns, and integration(we're a computer reseller). We have no communication with our true 'customers', but deal solely with our outside and inside sales reps. Should we define our customers as the sales team?
Check with your registrar to be sure. But I don't see any technical problem with this. I would avoid the approach, though, especially if the inside sales reps are in the same facility you're in. I would much prefer that the selling arm be covered by the scope of registration, because Contract Review (element 4.3) is an area where many problems can come up. Also, in my personal experience, outside reps feel "left out" and "ignored" by the home office a lot anyway, and if you leave them out of the ISO 9000 system, they'll be asked questions by their customers about it but will have to say that they're not involved. Not the optimal situation, IMHO.
Hi-O, Silver
I have just been hired as a Quality Manager for a molding firm who is interested in becoming QS-9000 certified. I am somewhat familiar with the ISO9000 program but was mostly the responsible for my own department (Quality dept.) under the direction of someone else. My question is: Is becoming QS-9000 certified possible using the resources of the quality dept. or do all other department need to be involved? From what I can determine, I only have a quality supervisor as a resource. I'm very good at procedure development for a quality department and manufacturing arena, but do not know what kind of resource would be required to bring the company to QS-9000 certification. Some insight would be helpful. Also, do you know where the QS-9000 standards and other pertinent information can be obtained. Thank You in advance, your help will be sincerely appreciated.
Absolutely, positively every department must be involved. Most especially, you need early, regular, and consistent support from the top management team.
In my opinion, if all you have is yourself and your assistant (good as you both may be), you'd might as well not start.
Sorry for the blunt talk, but QS-9000 implementation is a bear to do even when you have a strong diverse team, management commitment, and adequate resources. I'd hate to see good people burning themselves out without those things.
Can We Leave Out Accounting?
There isn't anything in the Standard that applies to our accounting department, so I'm figuring on leaving them out of the system.
It's true, there's nothing in the Standard that says you have to follow sound accounting principles. For that matter, there is nothing in the Standard that requires your company to make money.
But in my experience it is a rare organization whose accounting function is not affected by the requirements in some way.
In most organizations, where the ISO/QS 9000 system affects the accounting function, it is in the context of:
- Management Responsibility - Resources
- Contract Review
- Purchasing
- Records
- Statistical techniques (where cost of quality and other measures are calculated by the accounting function)
So be very careful before making the sweeping decision to leave an entire function of your organization out of the ISO/QS 9000 system.
Left to me, I'd err on the side of including accounting and finance, even if they are not directly impacted by the requirements. I believe everyone in the organization should be operating under the same type of documented, audited system. To include most and exclude others tends, in my view, to divide the organization and reduce the extent to which the system ultimately becomes transparent.
What's An "ISO 9000 Implementor"?
What is a ISO 9000 Implementer and what should their Qualifications be? Can their qualifications be checked?
An ISO 9000 implementor is one who helps companies design and implement ISO 9000 quality systems and prepare them for registration audit. Qualifications are successful experience and a good track record. Certainly qualifications can and should be checked, by talking to previous clients. In this business, track record is everything.
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