As a profession we, auditors, are not doing enough - Simon Feary speech

Sidney Vianna

Post Responsibly
Leader
Admin
Powerful and eloquent speech from Mr. Simon Feary, UK's CQI CEO and IRCA Director about the failure of the quality profession, with special emphasis on auditors.

I recommend every auditor and quality professional to watch this video clip:

 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Leader
Admin
I am reminded of the spanking I took here when I agreed with the auditor who assigned a nonconformance for calibration results being recorded as pass/fail.
 
M

misu183

We must be realistic and admit that top management is focused mainly on output.
I predict that therm of "quality management representative" will be history.
Question is which employer will understand and accept the direct involvement in quality?
 

Sidney Vianna

Post Responsibly
Leader
Admin
We must be realistic and admit that top management is focused mainly on output.
In the speech, Mr. Feary mentions the fact that, in average in the UK, organizations waste 20% of their revenues in cost of non quality issues. As he puts it, which managing director wouldn't like to be able to add 20% (or 10% or 5%...) of their revenues to the bottom line?

The quality function is misunderstood, mismanaged, misassigned, misdirected, etc.. by a very high percentage of organizations in the corporate world. We won't be able to change the perception of the quality function, however, until quality professionals are able to insert and speak quality from within the business processes we are supposed to support.
 
R

RLewing

I listened to the speech at least three times with increasing seriousness. Having been a 3rd party auditor and nowadays being a subject of 3rd party auditing I a m very much recognizing what he is talking about. Actually I identify it, like he does, as a problem of the whole quality profession.

But this speech is only recognition of a problem - has anybody good links to the solution? He mentions that they are addressing this in the UK.

Of course the simple answer is "calculate quality costs". But nowadays, when all functions' resources are cut to minimum, how the few quality people could identify and calculate that "20%"? It needs already commitment (and "admitment") of the other functions/business processes - who don't have resources either, or who not really prefer to get that result - e.g. in fear of being scolded.

We need management commitment to gather quality costs to show that we have lacking management commitment to gather...
 

John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
As lead auditors do we elicit sufficiently challenging audit objectives from the audit client for us to fulfill Simon's dream? Auditors should help everyone, starting with their audit client, that the organization is a system that exists to determine and fulfill the needs of customers and other stakeholders. And that parts of this system are essential to add value faster and prevent loss sooner and these parts should interact as the organizational management system.

In developing and improving the organization and its management system the auditor can then ask many valuable questions. But how often do we give ourselves the opportunity to ask these questions?

For example, how does the organization convert the needs of its customers into cash in the bank? Is the organization making promises it can keep? Does the chief executive own the process for investing in improvement of the system, its processes and its products? Is service important enough for blueprinting service? Is the money coming in fast enough to invest in improvement; if not what is holding it up? How much of the money has to be repaid to customers? How many customers does the organization lose and have to replace?

Measuring the cost of not keeping your promises just to shame leaders into keeping their promises is unlikely to work. Instead, just imagine the cost to stakeholders of not being able to make and keep competitive promises. It is sufficient to know that this cost is much higher than any investment in quality.

Quality professionals may become entrepreneurs themselves once they realize this.
 
Last edited:
R

RLewing

John, you give good points - but are they enough to wake up the management who are busy flying by the seats of their pants. ... I saw so many .... cases in my years of 3rd party auditor.

1) ... auditor can ask many questions but do we ask? - - Auditors ask, but don't get clear answers. After all - the audit is such a short sample.

2) Does the chief executive own the process for investing in improvement of the system, its processes and its services? - - The auditor probably can get a feeling about this, but has a problem how to present it in the report in a polite, yet clear way (a change-inducing way). After all, the chief may own it, yet his manner may be owning it efficiently without using time for documents. He has so many things to be responsible for...

3) Is the money coming in fast enough to invest in improvement - - In today's situation many other things can be used as explanation (such that are beyond the management's control).

4) .. "repay to customers?" and "lose and need to replace customers?" - - Well these should be rather simple. Yet if the company has not chosen these as their performance indicators (saying, e.g. that "bottom line" is their prime indicator), then what can the auditor do? (Bottom line includes those already.)

Maybe it is not enough to reach the Management Team. The Board of Directors should maybe be interested? But also here the question is - how? Probably only quality news that would reach them might be cancelling of certification.

I doubt about becoming a quality entrepreneur - there are so few potential customers - who are near to seeing the need but have not already hired enough professionals to take care of systematic quality.
 

John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
John, you give good points - but are they enough to wake up the management who are busy flying by the seats of their pants. ... I saw so many .... cases in my years of 3rd party auditor.

1) ... auditor can ask many questions but do we ask? - - Auditors ask, but don't get clear answers. After all - the audit is such a short sample.

2) Does the chief executive own the process for investing in improvement of the system, its processes and its services? - - The auditor probably can get a feeling about this, but has a problem how to present it in the report in a polite, yet clear way (a change-inducing way). After all, the chief may own it, yet his manner may be owning it efficiently without using time for documents. He has so many things to be responsible for...

3) Is the money coming in fast enough to invest in improvement - - In today's situation many other things can be used as explanation (such that are beyond the management's control).

4) .. "repay to customers?" and "lose and need to replace customers?" - - Well these should be rather simple. Yet if the company has not chosen these as their performance indicators (saying, e.g. that "bottom line" is their prime indicator), then what can the auditor do? (Bottom line includes those already.)

Maybe it is not enough to reach the Management Team. The Board of Directors should maybe be interested? But also here the question is - how? Probably only quality news that would reach them might be cancelling of certification.

I doubt about becoming a quality entrepreneur - there are so few potential customers - who are near to seeing the need but have not already hired enough professionals to take care of systematic quality.

RLewin,

It all depends on the audit objectives we are able to elicit from the audit client. Are registrars or lead auditors challenging themselves enough to obtain these audit objectives in the first place?

Most audit reports I see (both internal and third party) start with a tame audit objective without mentioning the fact that conformity to ISO 9001 requires an effective management system.

In this context, conformity equals effectiveness.

So, we have the tools but do we choose not to use them because of the collective mind-set? Or opting for an easier life?

John
 
Top Bottom