How much do we need to pay for consultants?

[jerzki]

Hello all covers and quality guru's!

Gud day to you all!
Our management is with this consultants for almost over 2 - 3 years now and still our management is not seeing progress, that I would say! Upon my employment here, I have started things or started to clarify the things for them. I know that this consultant is good but i believe the company is lagging so much behind this certification. As i have posted on my posts before, the GM insist he will be the QMR, and he do; he is reviewing the documents that I have prepared applicable to the system, along with the nominated ISO team. Project Managers , they are the four big people of the company. I know this is good, and I believe the company is progressing.
But finally, the management has decided to have a consultant for this ISO project to act as mediator and to clarify things. Because if i am the one who is telling that this and this should be done they tend to hesitate the idea and every meeting, I can say we are dicussing in a high temperature tones but eventually seized down after the meeting. Well, to avoid this I have suggested to go for another consultants coz as I've told you our consultant before is making communications only once in a blue moon. ( whew! i guess this is a long intro... ).
My question is , how much does a consultant really have to be paid. We have 100 - 120 owned employees, about plus 500 contrated from other companies, and about 30 people to be directly involved in the implementation.We have prepared the manual already, and some supporting documents.All we need is the fine tuning and the expedite implementation of this project. Just a picture how much as of today's trend!
Thanks in advance covers!!!!!

Jerzki

[harry]

First, let us know which country are you from. We had been guessing from day one. Wes thought you are Asian but from your name/nick, I thought you are from Eastern Europe.

Fees vary a lot from country to country.

[jerzki]

a big sorry to all folks,

I am an asian but currently working here in saudi right now. Hope this may clears up.
thanks again.

Jerzki

[Randy]

If you have a consultant that has been working for 2 or 3 years to develop a QMS you'd be better off to pay him his travel back home and hire someone else.

You're next step should be to find someone who knows what he's doing, or better yet, save the money and do it yourself.

[Jennifer Kirley]

Goodness, at 2-3 years that consultant seems practically an employee!

It's t-o-o l-o-n-g a period for such contracted work. Maybe I have a suspicious mind, but I wonder if this fellow is hoping to be just absorbed into the company as Management Rep.

[Britman]

Well said Randy and Jennifer

Have they included a “Cost of Quality” review!!!!!!

[Ted Schmitt]

We had a consultant for a few years and we finally kicked him in the #($#@ right out the door... we got a team together (MR, Quality manager, Engineering Manager and Production Manager) burned up all his work and started from zero.... six months later we had our pre-audit and two months after that a sucessfull certification audit... we had 130 employees and total support from management... alot of sweat, reading, couses but we are proud to say we did it with NO external help...

I think if you are well versed in the standard, and your GM wants to be directly involved, I see no reason for a consultant....

[atitheya]

Originally Posted by Randy

If you have a consultant that has been working for 2 or 3 years to develop a QMS you'd be better off to pay him his travel back home and hire someone else.

You're next step should be to find someone who knows what he's doing, or better yet, save the money and do it yourself.

Though I completely agree with above on the time taken, sometimes it does happen that the company does not respond appropriately and the project gets delayed beyond imagination.

This could happen due to more than one reason and specially when the consultant is helping the people of the organisation develop the QMS and not developing on his own. These reasons could be:

- busy schedules such as those of Doctors for a private nursing home,
- changes in top / middle management,
- lack of top management commitment,
- inability of top management to keep the people motivated in developing and implementing,
- conflicting egos etc etc.

No, it is not a regular feature, but such instances do occur. Sometimes the consultant has to really work hard to chase the organisation to maintain continuity in order to progress.