QUALITY IMPROVEMENT AND ISO 9000 |
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What has changed in recent years is the way we approach the subject
and the tools and techniques that have become available to help us.
The wider use of ISO 9000 was one of the important steps.
The rules for the suppliers were quite simple,
First there needed to be a quality management system, e.g. a policy, a management structure defined responsibilities.
Secondly there had to be written procedures describing the system and what needed to be done. These procedures needed to cover all stages of the process from receipt of a customer's order to despatch of the goods. The philosophy was quite simple, if you always do things the same way the chances of getting it right improve, especially if you learn from your mistakes.
Thirdly learning from mistakes. The supplier needed to have systems for analysing problems and preventing recurrence.
BS 5750 might have remained in oblivion had it not been for the British Government of the 1980's mission to reduce spending in the public sector and to improve quality within British Industry. To improve quality a standard needed to be set and why not use the BS 5750 requirements that were a plagiarism of the original Government requirement. To save costs the Government could reduce manpower by using an independent organisation to check that suppliers met the requirement. The suppliers would incur some costs but would also have fewer visits from different organisations checking the quality systems and would achieve some labour savings.
It is therefore not surprising that a recent survey found 75% of companies that had achieved approval did it because of external pressures such as customer requirements and competitors having obtained approval. This is what the system was designed for. The public and increasingly the private sector are looking for the standard when placing tenders. This tends to be a 'tick in the box' and once the initial hurdle of whether you have a quality system has been overcome, plays little part in the remainder of the tendering process.
The BS 5750 standard is identical to ISO 9000 adopted by more than 60 countries throughout the world. When selling overseas companies are finding that approval is a benefit, it improves the perception of the company and creates an image of a professional organisation.
Other benefits depend on the individual company, some have found the way in which their company operates improves, others claim ISO 9000 to be bureaucratic and a waste of money. So why the difference and what are the real benefits?
The ISO 9000 requirements are brief statements described in very general terms, it is up to the company how they meet the requirement. For example the need for a documented system does not state how thick the document should be, how many forms you should have or any of this sort of detail. It is up to the organisation to decide what is needed to control their business. This is one of the main pitfalls caused by inexperienced people setting up the system and doing too much, or trying to introduced systems they have used in another company, which are not appropriate to the business, or size of company they are now working with. Even for the professional, not everything you try works first time and there is a need to look at things again. This is possibly why a recent survey of BS approved companies found that while one year after approval 60% thought they had benefited, after four years over 90% felt they had improved.
The benefit of writing procedures also depends on the size of the organisation, number of locations and type of business. When you are small it's easier to shout across the office. As the company grows larger the procedures provide a foundation for expansion, allowing new staff to settle in faster, making it easier to identify areas where the system needs to be changed and frees management from many day to day routine supervisory tasks.
It is possible for a company that is reasonably under control, (low
level of customer problems) to just document their present system and make
very few changes to meet the ISO 9000 requirement. This is reasonable if
the main aim of approval is just the tick in the box at the tendering stage.
The BS is a set of minimum requirements and why change a system that is
working? On the other hand 'No pain no gain' and these companies are unlikely
to find any real internal benefits and long term will suffer if they do
not continually improve what they are doing. So who does benefit? The companies
that gain the most, surprisingly enough, are those that are committed to
providing a quality service and improving. For them this is an opportunity
to find ways they can improve and to measure themselves against the requirements.
The benefits are then in any area of their business they seek to improve.
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The ISO 9000 standard was revised in 2001 and updated to ISO 9001:2000. The changes provide a much broader range of subjects and a more useful document to work with.
See our articles;-
THE INTRANET AS A METHOD OF INTEGRATING PROCEDURES INTO THE METHODS OF WORKING
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