Hi everyone!

The company I am working for is a relatively small (about 10 employees) secondary market reseller of networking equipment. That is, we do not manufacture anything - we just buy equipment (mostly used), test and repair it (if necessary), and then sell it.

We've decided to implement a minimal but formal QMS now and eventually seek ISO 9001 (and then TL 9000) certifications. So it appears to be natural to align our QMS documentation with ISO 9001 requirements from the very beginning. (Well, at least it looks so to a newcomer. :-)

Unfortunately, all the the QMS documentation samples and templates that I saw in the last few days (including some on Elsmar) are clearly catered either to manufacturing businesses or to service providers.

So... if anybody can give me any pointers to sample QMS documentation (in particular, Quality Manual) developed for a RESELLING company, I would really, really appreciate you help!

Of course, I am assuming that a reselling company has a chance to be certified to ISO 9000. If my assumption is wrong, please let me know - I think it would make development of our QMS easier. :-)

Thank you,
Yarik.

Yarik

Yes, indeed, a reseller can be registered. We have such clients with registered quality management systems to both ISO and TL.

In many ways your business is similar to a distributor so take another look at the example documentation (under the green "post attachments' link at the top of the page) see what you can find. It's very unlikely you are going to get a close example, so it may mean just working through it or getting some external help.

Your manual etc should be describing what your organization's processes are and the documentation needed to control those processes. You don't need a manual which mimics ISO or TL, you need something which meets the requirement for manual content plus a few more things. It's been discussed at length here.

And, welcome to the Cove!!

Hi everyone!

The company I am working for is a relatively small (about 10 employees) secondary market reseller of networking equipment. That is, we do not manufacture anything - we just buy equipment (mostly used), test and repair it (if necessary), and then sell it.

We've decided to implement a minimal but formal QMS now and eventually seek ISO 9001 (and then TL 9000) certifications. So it appears to be natural to align our QMS documentation with ISO 9001 requirements from the very beginning. (Well, at least it looks so to a newcomer. :-)

Unfortunately, all the the QMS documentation samples and templates that I saw in the last few days (including some on Elsmar) are clearly catered either to manufacturing businesses or to service providers.

So... if anybody can give me any pointers to sample QMS documentation (in particular, Quality Manual) developed for a RESELLING company, I would really, really appreciate you help!

Of course, I am assuming that a reselling company has a chance to be certified to ISO 9000. If my assumption is wrong, please let me know - I think it would make development of our QMS easier. :-)

Thank you,
Yarik.



You ARE a service provider.

You ARE a service provider.

Really? Hmm... never thought about it in this way...

And the service we provide to our customers is...? Something like "outsourced product procurement on a secondary market"?

Ewww :sarcasm:

Perhaps you may have taken my original reply out of context.
If so, I apologize.

You had mentioned that your company is not a manufacturer.
You also stated that it seemed the ISO standard was geared toward either manufacturing or 'service providers'. This is correct.

But, it appeared as if you were excluding your company from that category.

Well, if someone pays you for a service, in your case, "RESELLING", you're a service provider.
Simple as that.
Best of luck.

Ewww :sarcasm:

Perhaps you may have taken my original reply out of context.
If so, I apologize.


You have absolutely nothing to apologize for. Actually, I think that my own questions may have been worded somewhat too casually to convey my point properly.

I am absolutely new to the club, and so far all this ISO-related "stuff" looks quite bureaucratic to me. It really didn't ever occurr to me that our company's business could be classified as provision of some service. But I really don't know what classification to expect from a bureaucratic system that was initially focused on manufacturing only. So I simply took your answer seriously and sincerely tried to understand why would a business that is commonly called "reselling" be classified as "service provision".


But, it appeared as if you were excluding your company from that category.


I just was not sure whether ISO would easily fit our company's profile (or vice versa). And whether there were any real cases of certifying a company with a similar profile.


Well, if someone pays you for a service, in your case, "RESELLING", you're a service provider.
Simple as that.


Frankly, something still does not look right with this simple approach. It seems to me that this kind of logic allows to qualify any business - even manufacturing - as service provision...

Thanks,
Yaruj.

I am absolutely new to the club, and so far all this ISO-related "stuff" looks quite bureaucratic to me.

I think the first and most important step is to acquire some knowledge - ie, go do some kind of 'Understanding ISO 9001' or Introductory course. I strongly urge you not start with documentation - you're likely to waste your time at this point - you need first to know something about the whole topic.

If you feel a strong urge to document, then turn your attention to writing essential procedures - those that are agreed internally to be much needed. That effort won't be wasted. But do not, do not, go looking for 'ISO models' or attempt to align your doco with the clauses of the Standard. That way lies bureaucracy and madness indeed.

Hi Yarik,
I understand your agony, however the manuals that you see here can be
used as your reference but you'll be the one to customize it according
to your needs. That's what I do in our company. and helps a lot.
You can try to look for other manuals in this site: (see below)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
There are several manuals that you can use, i just don't know if there will
a specific manual that you can used. Happy searching.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
raffy :cool:

Yes, indeed, a reseller can be registered. We have such clients with registered quality management systems to both ISO and TL.

In many ways your business is similar to a distributor...


Actually, I think that our key difference from a distributor may be very substantial. A typical distributor deals with brand new products and therefore their influence on the product's quality must be quite limited (probably, not very much beyond "Preservation of product" part of the standard). In many cases they probably don't even have to open the original manufacturer's packaging. Quite the contrary, we deal with "used stuff" (sometimes heavily used one), and total or partial nonconformance is quite common among the products that we buy. Our very business is to triage the purchased products, test them (sometimes quite thoroughly), fix whatever needs fixing (and can be fixed), and finally sell the conforming-enough items to those who wants them (often instead of fully conforming brand-new versions of those very products). So our entire business process - starting from purchasing - seems to have very substantial and very direct affect on the quality of the products that we deliver.

Actually, our case may be even more intricate than just dealing with "used stuff": one of our major customers is a manufacturer buying their own products from us.

Anyway, maybe I am exaggerating the differences. Still, I would like to ask you this, if you don't mind: When you mentioned that your portfolio has some cases of certifying similar companies, was any of those companies dealing with secondary market?


...so take another look at the example documentation (under the green "post attachments' link at the top of the page) see what you can find. It's very unlikely you are going to get a close example, so it may mean just working through it or getting some external help.


Thank you! I'm already doing that. And so far, like you predicted, could not find anything close enough to answer all our questions. :(


Your manual etc should be describing what your organization's processes are and the documentation needed to control those processes. You don't need a manual which mimics ISO or TL, you need something which meets the requirement for manual content plus a few more things.


Yeah, this I do understand... more or less... I think... :)


And, welcome to the Cove!!


Thanks a lot for a warm welcome!

BTW, speaking of "external help"... If you or your company can offer such help to a company like ours, what's the best way to contact you on that matter?

Best regards,
Yarik.

I think the first and most important step is to acquire some knowledge - ie, go do some kind of 'Understanding ISO 9001' or Introductory course. I strongly urge you not start with documentation - you're likely to waste your time at this point - you need first to know something about the whole topic.

If you feel a strong urge to document, then turn your attention to writing essential procedures - those that are agreed internally to be much needed. That effort won't be wasted. But do not, do not, go looking for 'ISO models' or attempt to align your doco with the clauses of the Standard. That way lies bureaucracy and madness indeed.

What you just described would be exactly my plan if I had time. The irony of my situation is this: our business does work pretty well, we do deliver good products (less than 1% return rate), and we do have a lot of useful, quality-oriented processes in place (some of them are even documented, more or less :rolleyes:); however, one of our prospective customers (a very important one) wants to see our Quality Manual ASAP and probably will want to see other samples of our QMS documentation later. (Thank God they do not require actual certification yet!)

My personaly urge actually is to do everything in proper order and at proper pace, but I have to suppress that urge and come up with some decent Quality Manual and do it quickly. Like I said, it does not have to be certification-ready, but it has to have all the most important things in place.

The Internet is full of boilerplate QM templates, but I cannot use boilerplate stuff "as is" because the goal is not to pass some formal audit - the goal is to demonstrate (in writing) that we know what we are doing. I believe anything that looks boilerplate is likely to do more harm than good for us. As a result, I am doing at least three things in parallel: (1) trying to collect everything necessary to document all our key business processes; (2) trying to acquire some knowledge about ISO QMS framework (reading "ISO 9001 In Plain English" book and some other literature); and (3) trying to find any QM samples with similar business profile, good language, and good deal of details (because overlooking some important details is way too easy in these circumstances).

Actually, I am very much interested in good samples of process documentation too, but somehow I thought that I should start from QM. Maybe because QM is what the customer explicitly wants to see first. :-)

Anyway, wish me good luck, please - I think I need a lot of it. :-)

BTW... by any chance, are you familiar with the book I mentioned? "ISO 9001 In Plain English" by Craig Cochran? If you are, what's your opinion on it? (Most of what I read so far feels quite useful and sensible, at least to a newbie like yours truly. But I'm really really curious to hear a professional opinion. :-)

Best regards,
Yarik.

Hi Yarik,
I understand your agony, however the manuals that you see here can be
used as your reference but you'll be the one to customize it according
to your needs. That's what I do in our company. and helps a lot.
You can try to look for other manuals in this site: (see below)
http://www.4shared.com
There are several manuals that you can use, i just don't know if there will
a specific manual that you can used. Happy searching.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
raffy :cool:

Thank you for the reference, Raffy! I'll definitely take a look there (probably once I am done with "digging" here, at the Cove).

So, you are involved with 'refurbishment & testing' in addition to sales/marketing. As long as you are not manufacturing the parts, it is still a service.

Ah, I see. Tough spot (but not an unusual one).

by any chance, are you familiar with the book I mentioned? "ISO 9001 In Plain English" by Craig Cochran? If you are, what's your opinion on it? (Most of what I read so far feels quite useful and sensible, at least to a newbie like yours truly. But I'm really really curious to hear a professional opinion. :-)

Oh yes, I like Craig. He writes well and is a Cove member. You could do very very much worse than read what Craig has written. Which is a convoluted way of saying, yes good book. I've read parts of it on the Cove, not all.

Yarik, another thought on the subject is the 'scope' statement for your organisation. This defines what your company does and may be considered as the boundaries of the certification - it goes on your certificate and informs anyone who wishes to know, what you do.

An example may be 'The design, manufacture and installation of kitchen furniture'.

Yours may be 'Supply, repair and testing of used computer networking equipment'.

This may not be totally accurate as it is difficult to establish from 'long range' but it is a start point.

So, you are involved with 'refurbishment & testing' in addition to sales/marketing. As long as you are not manufacturing the parts, it is still a service.

Let me see if I understand you correctly: in the ISO world, if you are not a manufacturer (that is, if you do not create the tangible product that you sell) then you are automatically classified as a service provider (that is, your product is not the hardware that you sell, but some service). Is that correct?

Let me see if I understand you correctly: in the ISO world, if you are not a manufacturer (that is, if you do not create the tangible product that you sell) then you are automatically classified as a service provider (that is, your product is not the hardware that you sell, but some service). Is that correct?

Yes, that's usually the case.