Re: ISO 9000 Quality Consultant
You need to work hard in several areas, it may seem hard in the beginning, but you did the right thing by seeking help, which shows that you are concerned, and not just acting the role out, my advice to you is to work on two critical areas which are of equal importance:
1. Knowledge:
You need to read a lot (the cove is an excellent resource), ask a lot, draw assumptions and try to realize what should be done, ask a friend, ask people in similar situations.
there are many points to consider when beginning on your endeavour, one of the most important is: why are yo building a system? - do you intend to acquire new business? is there a deadline you have to meet? who has initiated this move and what are his (Real) intentions? and how are people in your company feeling about the whole deal?
once you understand the reasons behind establishing a system and the expectations and you establish and agree with top management and the intiator on a scope, a plan and responsibilities, you'll be ready to do a full review of your activities in coordination with each respective process owner.
During this review (which should be similar to what certification bodies refer to as pre-assessment) you could use a checklist based on the ISO9001:2000 requirements, and i suggest you get a professional certification body/consultant to do it for you just so to set you on the right track from the start.
Then comes the phase where you translate the gaps you've identified into actions to be taken, including actions relating to the development of documentation needed, form a team, don't work alone, get people involved through having an approved plan for this phase, hold meetings with the process owners and get to know how they conduct their activities, and discuss with them the modifications needed to fill in the gaps but don't incorporate it into the flow chart yet, reach a final as-is document describing your activities (flow chart, text based, etc.) then move on to the next department .........once you've completed all departments within the scope of your system, you could integrate them together and have a general process map for all your activities, next step would be to analyze the maps you got,to allocate the gaps previously identified by the certification body, along with the suggestions given to you by the process owners, you may have more meetings with them as needed to discuss the gaps and required modifications
Once you have an as-is set of process flow charts, and a list of the modifications needed for each one, you may obtain top management's approval on the modifications, then off to preparing your first draft
following the preparation of the first draft, you'll discuss it and agree with all process owners on it, review it, approve it, distribute it/share it
then begin implementation of the modifications........
(now this isn't a complete description of all project activities, and it also doesn't describe the project in relation to which requirements in the standard can be implemented in what way, those are points you should take some time to research and ask more specific questions about....so you wouldn't get swamped with information .... because your question is one that takes a lot of time to answer)
2. Communication:
You need to ensure that everyone understands that this system you're assissting them in establishing should reflect what they're doing, and so you have to keep it alive, by spreading it out and communicating with all departments concerned, as well as top management, empower yourself and obtain top management's support, you could ask for a period of time while you get your act together so that you wouldn't give conflicting output and become judged based on it, you have to know exactly what you're talking about and believe in it!