ISO 9001 and Educational Institutions (Service Provider)

[begum]

I am quite relieved to read this thread on Service Providers and ISO 9001 especially "Think of the service you provide as your "product" by Steven Wright

My university is going for ISO 9001 : 2000 certification.

The scope is "Higher Education Service - Teaching and Learning". I told the management that our product can be the diplomas and degrees programmes that we offer.

There are some in the management who beleieve that the graduates are the products.

Any comments a.s.a.p please

Begum (Ms)
Malaysia

[BadgerMan]

There are some in the management who beleieve that the graduates are the products.

I would consider students/graduates to be the customers. By the way, Steven Wright is a semi-famous social commentator who said:

"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot."

My (Badgerman's) advice was:

Think of the service you provide as your "product".

I am by no means as clever as Steven Wright.

[Craig H.]

Originally Posted by BadgerMan

I would consider students/graduates to be the customers.

I would agree, but there are others, as well, especially for publicly funded education.

First, the taxpayers. They expect the university to produce the people who will provide the intellectual horsepower to drive their economy.

Second, businesses. Exisiting concerns are likely already taxpayers, but prospective businesses are not. Having a well educated work force is an attractive attribute for an area being considered for a new facility.

Third, unfortunately, government. They control the purse strings. A college president ignores politics at their own, and their school's, peril.

[Sidney Vianna]

Originally Posted by begum

There are some in the management who beleieve that the graduates are the products.
Any comments a.s.a.p please
Begum (Ms)
Malaysia

You should get yourself a copy of the ISO IWA2 Document

International Workshop Agreement 2 — Quality Management Systems — Guidelines for the application of ISO 9001:2000 on education

In there, they provide some useful hints, such as

3.1 customer [ISO 9000:2000]organization (3.3.2) or person that receives a product (3.4.2)

EXAMPLE for IWA 2 clauses: A customer can be a consumer, in education or training, generally a learner, a client or purchaser, in education or training, generally a person or body funding the learner who may also be the learner, an end-user, in education or training, generally the person or organization that benefits from the learning achieved by the learner..

3.4 educational product

product concerned with education
NOTE : An educational product generally involves the provision of a service that includes the intellectual software of information and some form of computer software or paper based hardware assisting the transfer of information and retention for continuing reference.

[MikeL]

Originally Posted by begum

I am quite relieved to read this thread especially
"Think of the service you provide as your "product". by Steven Wright

My university is going for ISO 9001 : 2000 certification.
The scope is "Higher Education Service - Teaching and Learning". I told the management that our product can be the diplomas and degrees programmes that we offer.

There are some in the management who beleieve that the graduates are the products.

Any comments a.s.a.p please

Begum (Ms)
Malaysia

I have helped two schools and a unversity faculty.

It was tempting at first to think of the students as being the raw materials that you process into the final product (graduates) that you then sell to the community, business etc.

A lot of the standard (1994 version) made sense that way.

We decided after much debate to make the students our customers but also to consider our other stakeholders (family, business, community, government) as part of customer satisfaction.

[begum]

Dear All


I am still with the documentation for my university. Can anyone share with me how the procedure should be written for Control of non-conforming products?

What are examples of non-conforming products for a university?

Begum (Ms)
Malaysia

[MikeL]

Customer complaints including stakeholder issues, internal stuff-ups, Universities do use external contractors for goods and services, they may also outsource work, hire facilties and so on.

You need a recording system for capturing information relating to a stuff-up. You need four things as a minimum:-

date of problem
description of problem
the action you took in resolving the problem
completion (date)

Everybody can raise a nonconformance but the line manager should be the one who determines the action to be taken.

Some of the stuff-ups I have seen include

course brochures incorrectly printed
timetable errors
faulty AV Equipment
rooms double booked
outside work not delivered on time
poor housekeeping
contaminated food in cafeteria
badly worded exam papers
inconsistent grading by examiners

Where there is a physical item that is faulty the procedure needs to include use of a reject tag or similar.

The procedure should include the need to train all staff in nonconformance and complaint handling, also review of nc by top management.

[begum]

Can anyone help me with this please?

Can Clause 7.2.2 REVIEW OF REQUIREMENT RELATED TO PRODUCT ( our product being service of delivering diploma and degree programmes)be an exclusion for a university?

My university is actually a Branch Campus. Most statutory dan regulatory requirements are defined and reviewed by the Main Campus

I really need an urgent reply.

Begum Ibrahim (Ms)
Malaysia