What would you pay a consultant to help Implement an ISO Quality Management System, for a company of 25 employees?

I have been asked to do this for a company and I have no idea what compensation should be or even how to ask for it. I have a meeting with the Company Tuesday morning to discuss this very thing, Please help!!!

Thanks, Paula:)

I'd estimate them at between US$4K to US$10K.

This is from an old quote for a 60+ person shop:

At this point I am hesitant to provide other than a Rough Order of Magnitude quote until a gap analysis is performed. Without knowing the specific status of your facility, I would be less than truthful to attempt to predict implementation costs. The Gap Analysis below is Firm Fixed Price and includes all expenses - there are no 'hidden' costs, such as travel.

Gap Analysis:
On-Site 1 Day
Office 1/2 Day
Total US$1250.00

The gap Analysis will consist of a one day on-site visit during which approximately 1/4 of the time we would be touring the facility with an up-front document review (desk audit) and question/answer session. Within 5 business days of my visit I will provide you with the following deliverables: 1) A detailed analysis of your current status (including a base document review), 2) a proposed project plan and 3) projected project cost.

In response to your request for quotation, I submit the following:

Rough Order of Magnitude Quotation XXXXXXXX:

I am going to estimate the fees for services for the project to be somewhere between US$ 8,000 and US$ 15,000.

Fees: On-site Daily US$ 600 / Day
On-site Weekly US$ 2400 / Week
Office US$ 55 / Hour

There are two basic reasons for the range. The first is that I have not yet evaluated the status of the facility (needs are not identified). The other is each company has their own personality. Some companies really take control and get things done internally. Some want more direct assistance some want other 'incidentals' such as documentation origination. Some need certain training and some need none. Others simply let a project languish for a number of reasons.

Per our telecon:

Scenario 1: ‘Complete’
This includes all ISO related documentation. As discussed, without a visit I would not begin to quote on process documentation.
Includes applicable ISO 9001:2000 related training, but does not include the price of training materials.

Note: Using the word ‘complete’ does not relieve the company of the responsibility to have personnel available for implementation and system responsibility. For example, if no nonconformance system exists, someone in the company will have to be responsible for the system once it is designed. ISO 9001 is not something a company ‘implements’ and that’s it. The nonconformance system will have to be overseen by a company employee – a new responsibility. In addition, a system cannot be designed in a vacuum. This is to say appropriate employee(s) must be available for me to interface with as the system is designed.

Another example is internal audits. They are a requirement and either training will be necessary for several individuals or the function must be contracted out yearly. In addition, there must be a person responsible for the system internally – another new responsibility – whether audits are out-sourced or not.

What this means is I cannot come in and give you a bunch of systems and walk out the door without the involvement (read time) of key company personnel. In addition, your company must have an on-site ‘expert’ who understands ISO 9001 and how your company complies (see General Notes, item 2 below).

Developing and managing your implementation plan
* Drafting your Quality Manual
* Establishing and documenting process flows for your procedures - Level 2 documents
* Identifying essential records to prove compliance with your Quality System
* Helping selecting a registrar

US$15,000

Scenario 2: Minimal
This is more or less how a typical implementation works in companies which prefer to do most of the work internally. In this scenario my main part is to oversee the project, help with systems design and other general help. I suggest you take a read through the attached PowerPoint file (Quote_Considerations.ppt) for some extra thoughts on your project.
Includes applicable ISO 9001:2000 related training, but does not include the price of training materials.

US$ 8,000

General Notes:
1. Other than the original assessment, there is a minimum 2 day requirement for visits because of the distance I must travel.
2. There are no hidden charges. Stated rates include all travel and related expenses.
3. While I can work with you in your project, I cannot ‘take the exam’ for you. During the registration audit appropriate personnel in your company must be ready to answer the auditor’s questions. An alternative is to contract your management representative position, which some companies do. I do not particularly recommend this methodology, particularly in a company of your size. This is discussed in a forum thread at: http://Elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1788

Hello Marc,

Thank you so much, that is everything I needed to know but just couldn't spell it out for myself. WOW! Now I can sleep. Thanks again for the Forums and all your help.
Paula

I agree, Marc. This was a very clear statement of the 'fudge factors' which affect the price of any consultancy. Do you have something very similar you give prospective clients before you even get engaged?

I note on your website that you have a "rough order of magnitude" worksheet to generate a preliminary quote. i wonder if more of the candor you exhibit in this post would also work on your website (i.e. give some ranges of fees subject to fine-tuning based on preliminary gap analysis.)

I may be naive, but I think a lot of small to medium companies like to have an idea of the minimum buy-in and table stakes before they sit down to poker with a table of strangers. (before they submit a request for proposal or quote)

Marc is pretty much right on.....mostly anyhow

Many times I let my clients set the price. I've got one that set it at $900 onsite per day, $300 per day travel + costs, and $125 per hr offsite. They had to twist my arm to get me to take it ;)

Normally it is about what Marc said.....

Bottom line,you'd better be able to deliver or your career will be short.

Bottom line,you'd better be able to deliver or your career will be short.

My career hasn't even started yet...this company is one of our suppliers. I contacted
them after they sent back our supplier quality survey without listing any QMS, or
BMS but stated that their customers include Honeywell and Boeing. I asked their
Quality Manager what standards they work to or if they are in the process of Implementing a QMS.
He said no but they are interested in doing it soon. We talked
for a while, I gave him some suggestions on how to get started and mentioned I would
be interested in doing some of their Internal Audits to gain audit time. We met for
lunch and his boss told him if he liked what I had to say to ask if I would be
interested in helping them with their Implementation process. I am a QMS Provisional
Auditor and thought that outsourcing Interal Audits would be a great way to gain
Audit time and experience. I have been on 3 Surveilance Audits as an observer and
would like to do this full time some day. I am the Quality Manager/ISO Rep/about
12 other job titles for the company I am with which is a total of 6 employees
including Top Management. I helped set up our ISO9001:1994 system and pretty
much did all of our ISO9001:2000/AS9100A on my own. We are going for our
AS9100A Registration November3,4 and 5th. The fact that I work at a small company
and can relate to how their employees feel about change is why they are
interested in my helping them. I have every intention and I am confident that I can
deliver, but I am not sure I should charge them for it. Since this would be the first
time I have done this for another company and because I had intended to gain audit
time, now I am not sure.... Maybe I just need a kick in the butt or maybe after what
you all have read, I should refer them to someone more qualified.
:confused: Help! Thanks Paula

Go ahead raptorwild,
Get your feet wet and good luck.
Mark's reply is on the ball, though you should prepare well in advace for this consultancy work.
Just keep in mind, and remind your client that, you are offering your client a service and not a quality system ticket or badge of registration.
Wallace.

Help! Thanks Paula

Are you auditing or consulting? Oil & Water you know!

As for auditing fulltime....don't quit your day job.

Randy,
For this company I would be consulting. It would be a conflict of interest for me to audit them after I did consultant work for them. I originally wanted to do some outsourced Internal Audits but now thier needs have pointed me to another direction. You are not the first person who told me not to quit my day Job :vfunny: I know that to get ahead and learn along the way is not going to be easy. Thats why I am willing to do it full time but would rather do it part time.
Paula

I'll be horribly honest here Paula. Unless you are at least a QMS-A and preferably a QMS-LA most Registrars won't even answer your submissions. You will need to bring something else to the table like an advanced EMS credential, auditing backgrounds in AS9100, TS, medical or some other scheme, and a multiple industry base, so on and so forth. When you can do this you may, I repeat, you may get an email saying thank you.

It would be a conflict of interest for me to audit them after I did consultant work for them.
I think the deal is you have to be 'out of touch' with a company for 2 years between consulting and then auditing.

I'll be horribly honest here Paula. Unless you are at least a QMS-A and preferably a QMS-LA most Registrars won't even answer your submissions. You will need to bring something else to the table like an advanced EMS credential, auditing backgrounds in AS9100, TS, medical or some other scheme, and a multiple industry base, so on and so forth. When you can do this you may, I repeat, you may get an email saying thank you.

I believe you but where there is a will there is a way. I don't intend on giving up any time soon. Eventually I will get QMS Auditor or Lead Auditor status and then work on Aerospace Auditor status. I have already worked with one Registrar who is up and coming...so it is just a matter of how much work I put into getting a foot in the door. :) I am pretty determined. Paula

Paula, good fortune in your upcoming new career ! !

Don't forget one of the golden rules of being a consultant: LISTEN to your client ! ! Probably more contracts and oportunities have been lost because the consultant did not fully listen to or fully understand the potential client, the needs and reasons why he/she wants the involvement of a consultant. The singular acknowledgement that they are looking for assisstance lends one to assume they are not competent to complete the task at hand. However, they may well be able to do just that, and only need assisstance from time to time when they are not quite sure how to proceed in a given area.

I, too, am keeping my day job for now. Final stages of working for a client in our small southern town conducting training and limited time on site for the T/S 16949 standard. Two others begining discussions, one in oil and gas exploration and the other in general manufacturing. I have had a tough time trying to put a price on my services, also. I finally came up with a fee schedule that is very reasonable and well under any competators within five states (I know a lot of them). Not trying to take food off their plates, still a lot of work here, but priced low enough to get my feet wet and in the door for some of our more high profile companies (name recognition helps the future) that are committed to success.

One thing for sure, is that it seems that fees are sliding down from where they were only a year or so ago. Fewer transitions and registrations, for sure, but also a lot of companies have been using (really using for improvment) their system and now want to transition to the new standard using as much of what they have learned from practice - something like the pride of doing things well. Many organizations do actually have well developed talents and have in fact been very successful at their transition experience.

The quality field has pretty much been a robust employment position over the past ten or so years, too, and a lot of people working on a well developed implementation project for an organization in the last couple of years seem to have been hired out from under their bosses and these folks (at times) do quite well working on a new progran for someone else.

It also looks like a good portion of organizations have not transitoned to the 9K:2K standard, probably due to their historically lack of true committment by senior management and their not wanting to really improve their operations. Although it seems strange, I have actually been to a site where the Man Rep and the Plant Mgr stated just that...don't want to improve (they didn't elect to transition to 9K:2K).

So there is no wonder that the fees for ISO consultants are slipping, less work to do. However, a number of people in the business are cutting back on the number of clients they will even consider if they feel there is not enough true committment from the senior management team. Most say it just ain't worth all the hair and teeth pulling and they would rather work for an organization that really is open to ideas for improving their processes, products/services, and customer relations ( read: business posture ).

Good luck in the future, maybe our paths will cross one day :cool:

Thanks Gary,

Well I met with the General Manager and the Account Exec. last Friday. It went very well! The GM said he felt I am perfect for their company. He had to go for a meeting with their mother company next week to report on what he found so I would not hear anything for sure untill a week or so. The Acct. Exec. walked out with me and said I was everything he told his boss I would be and felt it was an excellent meeting. So now I will just wait and wait and wait ever so happily :) Oh I forgot, I don't have time to wait around, I have to get ready for our AS9100A Audit in a couple of weeks! The more I try to get ready the more things I find wrong. Thanks again Gary. :bigwave:

Marc is pretty much right on.....mostly anyhow

Many times I let my clients set the price. I've got one that set it at $900 onsite per day, $300 per day travel + costs, and $125 per hr offsite. They had to twist my arm to get me to take it ;)
I've had some like this, but in the last couple of years ISO consultants have multiplied everywhere. In the late 1990's I was charging US$4000 a week plus travel and expenses, and US$1250 per day for 'quickie' visits. Up until 2001 I charged most companies a non-refundable retainer of between US$10K and US$20K for a project based upon the idea that if they backed out the time I scheduled for them would be 'lost'.

But as more and more folks entered the 'race', and all the large companies which were doing the QS 'dance' had done it, it came down to serious competition and those prices would have me out of the competition early.

Now days sometimes I do stuff for as low as US$30 an hour. It depends a lot upon what someone wants done and my schedule. Clear schedule, price goes down..

:biglaugh: Those days are long gone.....

My career hasn't even started yet...this company is one of our suppliers. I contacted them after they sent back our supplier quality survey without listing any QMS

Does your company require any "conflict of interest" documentation. Can you take the job if you got it because of your role there? Just asking....

I guess I'm cheap based on the above - or its a supply/demand. I've been 'around' $75/hour. I do not do much traveling - and didn't want to deal with charging for mileage. So depending on how far away they are by car, I adjust the above, and mileage is expensed. On the other hand, I've done no marketing. Most small shop clients are word of mouth. Regarding Marc's quote - one of the things I do is a "free" gap analysis...to help me develop the quote. If the quote is accepted - its free. If they decline the quote...meaning they can pass along my assessment to someone else for a quote - or so they can take it on their own (I list areas of major and minor concerns)...could even turn into an Internal Audit if they call it as such... then they pay my day rate, I've only been taken up on that offer once, and to be honest, when I sent the bill, I didn't expect it to get paid, but they did. Every other quote I approached in that manner, I've been awarded. Rates will go up next year - it only makes sense after remaining steady for 2 years.

Does your company require any "conflict of interest" documentation. Can you take the job if you got it because of your role there? Just asking....Hello Laura,
I asked my boss if he would mind and he said to go for it, especially since business is slow. We have been on 32 hour work weeks for about 6 months. He understands that I need to find other ways to supplement my income.
I dont see it as a conflict of interest, they are a supplier of a product we purchased once.
Now I will act as a supplier to provide them with this service that will help them (I HOPE) to become a better supplier to everyone. That is if they accept my quote.
Thanks,
Paula

:biglaugh: Those days are long gone.....
But they were fun!

Greetings.

This is just to say that I'm glad, really glad to have found the Cove. I am a provisional qms auditor and I always turn to the Cove whenever I have qms related concerns. Just recently, a manufacturing company asked me for quotation to help them set up a quality management system that will undergo certification. Although I do provide consulting services to small companies who had to align their qms (not necessarily be certified) to ISO 9002:1994 and lately, ISO 9001:2000 to meet regulatory requirements, these efforts are more of spoonfeeding, as one of my clients gratefully admitted. For this new project, I am thinking of being more of a guide and director rather than part-time driver. I have no idea how much a "real" consulting service cost and the consultant's scope of work. With the rough estimates given previously, I can make the currency conversion (PhP50 ~ 1$) and hopefully come up with a price which the company would consider enough of an investment for them to take the effort seriously. My previous fees are way lower, considering the size and capability of the firms.
Here's hoping that someday, I could make meaningful contributions to the Cove.

Naomi

Greetings.

This is just to say that I'm glad, really glad to have found the Cove. I am a provisional qms auditor and I always turn to the Cove whenever I have qms related concerns. Just recently, a manufacturing company asked me for quotation to help them set up a quality management system that will undergo certification. Although I do provide consulting services to small companies who had to align their qms (not necessarily be certified) to ISO 9002:1994 and lately, ISO 9001:2000 to meet regulatory requirements, these efforts are more of spoonfeeding, as one of my clients gratefully admitted. For this new project, I am thinking of being more of a guide and director rather than part-time driver. I have no idea how much a "real" consulting service cost and the consultant's scope of work. With the rough estimates given previously, I can make the currency conversion (PhP50 ~ 1$) and hopefully come up with a price which the company would consider enough of an investment for them to take the effort seriously. My previous fees are way lower, considering the size and capability of the firms.
Here's hoping that someday, I could make meaningful contributions to the Cove.

Naomi
Naomi, I was once a member of ASQ's editing committee for the Certified Mechanical Engineer exam. When we all introduced ourselves in turn one of the group said she was not a long time professional. She said she thought she would not be of much value to the group's efforts and might be wasting space.

We disagreed with her and said it was important to us that she had not been a QA professional for years and years because she could tell us when the questions didn't make sense. And she did.

Same goes here. Quality is supposed to make sense, although certainly there will be many levels and areas of expertise that we can't all share. All are welcome here, and all should be able to get some kind of help from someone--even if that is a nudge to do a search for something that has been discussed many times.

I have often felt I don't have a lot to contribute here, but I learned I have certain areas where I can chip in with confidence. I think you will find you do as well.

I'd estimate them at between US$4K to US$10K.

That's what I'd say, too. We fell in that range.