I'm curious to know if there are many other software developers on this forum. I know there are a lot of manufacturing related individuals here but not sure of how many software people are interested in ISO certification. If so, what kind of software do you make?

FYI -
My company creates aerospace software.
My previous company created manufacturing process optimization software (statistical tool sets).

I don't think there are, but I'm interested as well.

I'm curious to know if there are many other software developers on this forum. I know there are a lot of manufacturing related individuals here but not sure of how many software people are interested in ISO certification. If so, what kind of software do you make?

FYI -
My company creates aerospace software.
My previous company created manufacturing process optimization software (statistical tool sets).

I suppose that we qualify, but not so much as an organisation interested in formal certification against ISO9001 for our own operations. I am also a consultant, and I am more interested in how end-users approach the whole subject of business management systems and process management (which is what our software is designed for). As has been stated many times by others in this forum, certification (against any relevant standard) should only follow after an organisation has defined how it operates and is managed. [I was asked to contribute an article to TickIT International a couple of years ago, so someone must think that our approach has some merit!]

As you say, there seem to be a lot of automotive and aerospace people around - one of the problems I continually find is that folk in service industries find the wording of ISO9001:2000 far too much from the "continous production line" way of thinking.

It would also be interesting to find out if folk believe (or have experience to show) that a software company with ISO9001 is likely to provide a better product and service than one which isn't certified.

I'm curious to know if there are many other software developers on this forum. I know there are a lot of manufacturing related individuals here but not sure of how many software people are interested in ISO certification. If so, what kind of software do you make?

FYI -
My company creates aerospace software.
My previous company created manufacturing process optimization software (statistical tool sets).

To a certain extent I am a software developer, but only for as a single person (and a backup or two) project. I currently write in Visual Basic in order to access various production databases on site through ODBC, set up "flat files" (one line per entry to be counted, even if this duplicates information from line to line) and then counts the number of entries by time interval. Once the initial flat file is set up, the program is object driven. You specify the name of the table to be counted, its directory, and the output table, then the field to be counted and any filtering information. The output is to Access tables and to text reports.

No, I am not interested in ISO.

My two cents based on my own experience (sorry for the wordiness of it):

I've worked for organizations that were not ISO 9001 certified and ones that became ISO 9001 certified after I was there for a few years. One company didn't really need it, they were organized and there were no regulations that required cert. Another company, I was at, REALLY needed it. I think the interesting thing was that becoming ISO 9001 certified made the company become more cohesive with their development planning and releases, which made future planning easier. Where previously, they created software products that would stand alone and used whatever technology the architects were familiar with. The post-certified products, were more standardized and uniform. This provided consistency, which is always good for the user since it reduces their need to re-learn with every new product.

All that being said, I still believe that there are economy's of scale and that the gains of anything, like ISO 9001, have a limit. As we began to add more products to a common product suite (one that had a single install, a single security system, and a single database tool), we found that each product had it's own set of dependencies which affected the other products in the suite. Sometimes this caused decisions on supported technology for one product to be dictated by another product. Rather than using the best solution for the one product, we had to think in terms of the best solution for the entire product set (even though each product had a slightly different set of users with different sets of needs).

I work for software development company. We are ISO certified since 2004. Based on my experience, most of the firms that have implemented quality management system (even if not certified) benefit a lot. The main conditions - well designed, effective, *light and user friendly* system. Yes it is hard to achieve at the start, but with good management the evolution and the continuous improvement becomes not only buzz words.

I create VBA applications, and VBA in Excel.

Cheers.

:bigwave:

I have developed e-solver and are actually scoping the development of a web based ISO assessment programme. It will cover every aspect of ISO certification. People may get benefit from implementin of aspects in a real sense of the wod, but people get ISO certification for more reasons than their own process documentation and possible improvement. For example, some European company's require certain ISO certification to be considered as suppliers to them and so on.

I have created applications with VBA in PowerPoint. This included 'touch screen' guides programmed to work with ASCII through keyboards.

I'm a former manufacturing engineer who made the leap to programming. I started my own software company last year, and it has been an interesting experience from a process perspective.

One of the first books recommended to me was The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. For those not familiar with it, it's a book about not making the mistakes that most entrepreneurs make. In short - making sure you own the business - not letting the business own you. The major point of the book is that you need to standardize and document your business processes.

Having made a career as a process wonk, this book struck me as 200 pages of "Duh!"

Then one day that "Duh!" came around and smacked me in the forehead. I'd been having a bad week. First, I hadn't automated my builds yet for a new product in development, and I forgot a step - costing me several hours to figure out what the problem was. Then, I spent several hours sorting out support document version discrepancies because I hadn't standardized my file synchronization between my laptop and desktop. After that I had several more problems, when it dawned on me that none of them would have happened if I standardized, documented, and/or automated my business processes.

A few years ago I stumbled upon The Joel Test, 12 Steps to Better Code, written by Joel Spolsky of Fog Creek Software:

1. Do you use source control?
2. Can you make a build in one step?
3. Do you make daily builds?
4. Do you have a bug database?
5. Do you fix bugs before writing new code?
6. Do you have an up-to-date schedule?
7. Do you have a spec?
8. Do programmers have quiet working conditions?
9. Do you use the best tools money can buy?
10. Do you have testers?
11. Do new candidates write code during their interview?
12. Do you do hallway usability testing?

So I adopted this list as a starting point for standardizing my business processes. Not all of these apply to me as a single developer, and I've added a lot of my own, especially in regards to testing. I've found by keeping a simple set of standard processes I have less errors and my productivity goes up accordingly. This basic stuff, of course, but it's a little harder to step back and look at your processes objectively when you run your own businesses.

So, after all this rambling, what's my point?

Um, I'm not sure. It's been so long since I started typing that I forgot. No, wait. I remember now ... my point is that when you start to focus on quality for it's own sake, then implementing ISO seems more like a cargo cult[1] actvity than a real quality enhancement.


[1] http://www.physics.brocku.ca/etc/cargo_cult_science.html

In my opinion, ISO isnt about quality enhancement.

I work directly with Quality Mangement Software developers and visit this
site to stay current on the issues facing Quality Specialists who work in the trenches on a daily basis.

It can be viewed as self fulfilling or bias on my part to overtly solicit, advertise, or even offer advice especially without identifing my 'vested interest."

I am relatively new to this site, but have quickly learned to always identify who I represent, and to only offer specific information, only to those who make a direct request to me, and only after they consciously consider what that my intent could be.

Ultimately it is more important to me to be an ethical supporter of the discussions on this site, then it would be to make a few monitary gains.

"Once you spend your money, it is gone...knowledge can be given away as many times as you like, and you still get to keep it."

Respectfully,
MisterD
uniPoint Software Inc.

I think that we can conclude that we are software experinced people reading this forum

Hi,

I just started to visit this forum recently, but have run ppc ads on elsmar for months. I am with CEBOS, and we have been developing qms software for 12 years (although I am a newbie). I am here for learning about what people ask each other, and to intercept interested parties for consultive sales opportunities. Being new to the field, but aware that I work with good folks, I am looking for ways to learn by osmosis and alternative methods.

Nice of you to join. We are here to help and discuss any software quality topics. Don't hessitate with questions of any kind.

Hello, Larry. Nice of you to stop by and I appreciate your advertising support.

I don't think of this as much of a software developer forum, but there appear to be a few who stop by. There are so many forums and such that focus on coding on the web and here it's pretty much manufacturing and general services.

I'm not a coder. I did learn FORTRAN, PL1 and cobol back in the 1970's, but other than that my limit is html and a bit of php (and I'm not very good at either of those). I ued to work a bit with databases like Access back when it was 'hard' (mid-1990's), and did a fair amount in Filemaker (which has always been easy to work with on a Mac). And I play with mySQL these days. But as I say, I'm a novice.

If you have any suggestions on forum changes to help accommodate software developers and their interests, don't hesitate to speak up.

I am part of a software development company. A few of my colleagues and I occasionally visit the forum. I have used it to get a piece of advice or two.

<snip> I have used it to get a piece of advice or two.

That's all? :mg:

Stijloor.