Culture Shock and Things Need to Change - Implementing ISO 9001

[SteelMaiden]

As stated previously, ISO 9001 or any other set of numbers, 5s, 6S, Lean, nor any other program is going to fix your problem until you and the management sit down and make a plan for what you want to happen.

Once you decide what it is you want, then you must decide how to get there. Once you have all that figured out, then you and management need to show a united front and roll up your sleeves to get it done. Start with people or areas where you can make some allies in your quest. Then keep on moving kind of like ripples in a pond.

Until it is more uncomfortable to keep up the old methods then it is to change, you will not get very far. And by comfort/uncomfortable, I do not mean that punishment needs to be meted out, but more so that praise and pride of accomplishment needs to replace the old ways.

[Logic]

In Reply to Parent Post by Logic

I agree that you should forget about ISO certification at the moment. The company cannot be certified until it has good systems and processes in place, anyway. You certainly would not expect a child in kindergarten to be ready to write the SAT exams so you need to start at the beginning with the ABCs. Mentioning ISO to employees that have not mentally committed to the idea of standards will just cause eyes to glaze over or at best, roll over. They have to understand what is in it for them.
...

It has been said that great minds think alike, fools seldom differ.
Well, there is another thread going right now Enterprise Management vs Quality Management as Processes - Differences that says:

In Reply to Parent Post by Caster

Most people have zero interest in a QMS...they rightly ask, what's in it for me (WIIFM)? And they have less than zero interest in ISO 9000.

I only ever talk about business, I try to go days and weeks without saying the word quality.

Quality is a result of a business system. Sometimes it is a department within a business system. It is an output of the business system.

Trying to drive the business with quality is why so many of us are so frustrated in our profession (see the many sad threads here).

The best tool we have is cost of poor quality. Every problem has a dollar cost. Business systems can be put in place to sometimes avoid those costs. (notice I didn't say quality).

These costs are huge, know them, use them to sell.

Radio? Lost revenues due to lost advertisers? Lost any big accounts lately? Why? Lost a lot of small accounts lately? Why?

WIIFM? Imagine a day with no problems, no complaints....that's WIIFM

What could you do if you didn't have to fight fires all day?

The worst mistake ISO made was to put the word quality in the title.

These are business management systems, but because of that horrible word in the title they get delegated to the department least able to make the changes needed.

I am a broken record, every time there is a problem I can be counted on to say, imagine if we had a system in place to anticipate that....think of the effort and money we could have saved...and gee, look here is a system we could try..its called ISO 9000....

Found it interesting.

[RG Ohidy]

Ah yes, ..."if we had a system, say like ....ISO 9000"

But, the horse is out of the barn, and oh by the way, the barn is burning.

Do we talk about establishing procedures, as per ISO, to prevent the horse from having gotten free in the first place, or do we go and fight the fire, in order to save the barn, so that we have a place to put the horse when all is said and done?

Fight the fire, save the barn, put the horse away, and then put your management procedures in place for the future.

[JaneB]

Lots of good advice, most of which I agree with.

In Reply to Parent Post by Sidney Vianna

You can't do it. Only top management can, IF they are committed to it.

I think attempting to treat it as 'brand new organisation' won't work - because it is not. It has many,many years of history doing things the old way, which means a significant effort to try and change the culture.

A couple of references which might help are:

• Cracking the Corporate Culture Code - Unwritten Ground Rules, Steve Simpson,
  
• The Change Agents' Handbook, a surivival guide for quality improvement champions, David Hutton

both well worth reading and very applicable here. For example, if workers are told one day 'we do a quality job' and then 'it's close enough, ship it', the Unwritten Ground Rule is: near enough is good enough, and that's what will prevail.

In Reply to Parent Post by Sidney Vianna

The job of a PROGRESSIVE Q Mgr. should NOT be how to better inspect a product, or how to tighten existing verification activities. Dysfunctional behavior can be temporarily influenced via either stick and/or carrot strategies, but they are temporary fixes that can not overpower dysfunctional culture in the long term.

Very true. Don't own the entire problem - it's an issue of top management, and requires concerted, sustained leadership by example and direction from the entire management team.

One thing that might be useful is to estimate the cost of quality. What's it COSTING the company in failures? Because if it goes on like this, sounds like it is doomed to go out of business. If so, everyone's out of a job.