Are You "Doing It For ISO"?

• Do you spruce up your documents, records, processes and memories just before the quality auditor visits?
• Do you have documents that are rarely used in the interim?
• Do employees complain about wasted effort or grin and bear it when the quality management topic is raised?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, your quality management system is wasting your time, energy and money. Whether you are certified to ISO 9001, AS 9100 or any of several similar quality standards, you don’t want to be “doing it for ISO”.

It Is Never Too Late To Add Value

Whether you have an established quality management system or are just getting started, it is never too late to add value. Set a new goal right now:

Quality certification must be a result of running our business well. We will not do anything just to satisfy a quality standard!

This philosophy must be your guiding force. Establish the goal as stated above, repeat it three times, and then say it again and again and again …

Communicate clearly that the quality management system requirements are high level, good practice guidelines, and the challenge is in finding value-added methods of complying.

Often it is harder to add value if you already have a quality management system in place than it is if you are starting from scratch. You may have to throw out many practices and documents before your employees believe you really want value. To test whether your message has been heard, walk around and ask people why they are doing the things they do. If the answer is “ISO requires it”, you have not helped them understand your philosophy. As long as they are “doing it for ISO”, they have not found the value of complying with the requirements.

First Time Registration

If you are pursuing quality registration for the first time, the following will help you avoid common pitfalls of quality system implementation:

• Establish a clear goal to obtain certification because you want to run your business well. Insist that all efforts to comply add value and challenge the applicability of any requirement that doesn’t appear to add value for your business.
• Don’t rush; allow time to think, test and tweak. Also, once you have the core management system in place, use it to address critical issues. Assess the priority of the remaining quality requirements relative to your other priorities and address them in their turn. Don’t let the quality standard become the driving force for your business.
  (Exception: If you are in a hurry to meet a customer deadline or gain a competitive edge, take a two part approach. The first should involve quick action to get the certificate, and the second should return to the debates that will ensure value. Do not confuse the purpose or the results of these two separate approaches.)
• If you use outside help, they should help you interpret the quality standards and provide examples from their experience so that you can learn as quickly as possible how each requirement adds value. However, they should not make the decisions. You need to be sure you have responsible employees thinking through the value and making the decisions.

Finding the Value

Finding the value can be hard work, often quite a bit harder than latching onto an unpopular, but standard method of complying. But getting everyone to comply with a standard method that doesn’t seem to add value is much, much harder and will lead to half-hearted efforts at best.

In order to find the value, you must involve supervisors and employees directly engaged in doing the work. They must understand the purpose of each quality requirement pertinent to their work. Support them while they learn, interpret, and begin to understand why each quality requirement is important. Encourage debate. How would satisfying each requirement help you run your business better? Query the auditor. Insist upon value! If it doesn’t seem to be sensible, your team must keep asking questions until it does or until the auditor agrees that the requirement is not applicable to your business.

Compliance Options

Once you see the value, you are only half way there. The next challenge is in finding a method of complying that avoids wasted effort. Challenge each other. Be creative. Get ideas from consultants, auditors and other companies, and take the time to evolve a method that works for your company. While this evolution takes time and energy, understanding the value and wrestling with best practices helps everyone stay focused on the things that are important and lays the groundwork for continual improvement.

Choosing Next Steps

Remember that quality management and improvement is an on-going process. Don’t expect instant perfection. Concentrate on establishing a realistic picture of your current state, identify the gaps causing the biggest risks, and take steps toward improvement by addressing those top priorities first, a few at a time.

If you don’t have a management system, i.e., a reasonably effective system for establishing priorities, assigning resources, and monitoring progress, than you must start there. You can modify your management technique as you gain experience but start with the essentials: a periodic meeting to discuss what, why, who, when and how.

Stick with it. Your auditor will help you with your interpretations but you must insist that each requirement adds value. If you can’t see the value, keep asking questions until you do or until you can convince the auditor that the requirement does not apply.

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