Have I got the right idea for my ISO 9000 compliance project...

[Paul Simpson]

I'm quite lucky in that a friend of mine ISO 9000'd his company before he sold it.......

Hmm! Not sure this kind of terminology will strike a great chord with some of us here. You make it sound like a wash and polish job.

......the plan is to get a consultant in and let them point out all the bits that need tweeking.... well that's the "plan" anyway.

Again not an area I am interested in. Doesn't sound like a real "value add" job to me.

Good luck anyway.

 

[SteveUK79]

Hmm! Not sure this kind of terminology will strike a great chord with some of us here. You make it sound like a wash and polish job.

Again not an area I am interested in. Doesn't sound like a real "value add" job to me.

Good luck anyway.

I like to keep things simple, if you want me to use the full term ISO9000:2000 then I will though that's a little long winded for what I thought was a lighthearted friendly support forum and not a place where I am already being evaluated for ISO compliance.

And I can assure you this is not a wash and polish job and I hope I haven't misunderstood your post but that comes across as though you're trying to make out that I am not taking this very seriously as I can assure you I do otherwise I would not have posted on this site in the first place.

During each process of going through and evaluating every part of this company's processes and functions I've already identified several areas which need improvement and have already started serveral process changes. Thanks to my work the how sales process has been streamlined by something like 60% and people are already commenting on how much better that part of the business is running.

 

[JaneB]

it's just a case of putting it altogether for my employer and once all the basics are together the plan is to get a consultant in and let them point out all the bits that need tweeking.... well that's the "plan" anyway.

There's no easy answer, Steve. It's a plan that may well work, or it may have flaws in it. I've seen both. Without knowing a heck of a lot more about it/seeing examples, one couldn't really say whether the plan will work.

I've been asked in to companies using that approach. IN some cases, what they'd done was pretty good, and tweaking/fine tuning was fine. IN others, they'd spent one heck of a lot of time and wasted a lot of effort, alas.

it's I enjoy the full confidence of the directors and also plan to put together a presentation for everyone in the company to attend to bring them up to date with what I am doing.

That's good. I'd certainly want people involved though - they do better when involved, not told.

PS - I didn't see anything in the previous post by Steve to produce such a prickly response.

 

[BradM]

I like to keep things simple, if you want me to use the full term ISO9000:2000 then I will though that's a little long winded for what I thought was a lighthearted friendly support forum and not a place where I am already being evaluated for ISO compliance.

And I can assure you this is not a wash and polish job and I hope I haven't misunderstood your post but that comes across as though you're trying to make out that I am not taking this very seriously as I can assure you I do otherwise I would not have posted on this site in the first place.

During each process of going through and evaluating every part of this company's processes and functions I've already identified several areas which need improvement and have already started serveral process changes. Thanks to my work the how sales process has been streamlined by something like 60% and people are already commenting on how much better that part of the business is running.

Thank you, Steve! And well stated

You have learned one of many valuable lessons-don't take anything laying down. If you know you're right, stand up for it!!

Please don't take anything here too strongly. Most people have well-intentioned responses, and don't mean things personally.

 

[BradM]

I'm quite lucky in that a friend of mine ISO 9000'd his company before he sold it and when I told him about what I am doing just emailed me everything he had done for his company! He also now works for a much bigger company that is ISO 9000'd and also told me about what they do.
Additional to this I've also done a h*ll of a lot of reading off the web on this subject and have also picked up a couple of things from this site too.
So I have a lot of guidance on what is expected, it's just a case of putting it altogether for my employer and once all the basics are together the plan is to get a consultant in and let them point out all the bits that need tweeking.... well that's the "plan" anyway.

It sounds like you have a good start. However... it is really important that your QMS be for your organization, for the purpose of your upper management, and to meet your organizational objectives. It's OK to start from an existing program if it is highly similar. If not, it may be better to start from scratch. If your management's goals and the goals of the target organization are not the same/highly similar, you might want to rethink the plan.

My job? Well my job is to actually put together a proper IT system as this company has kinda just got stuff when they needed it. Once my ISO'ing task is done I'll be coming up with a proper network design, server setup and purchasing policy. As well as working with one of the directors in overhauling existing software.

I enjoy the full confidence of the directors and also plan to put together a presentation for everyone in the company to attend to bring them up to date with what I am doing.

Again, I will applaud you for your strategic planning and beefing up the infrastructure for the system. Again... like a broken record (if you're old enough to ever hear a broken record) the most important thing is to assure that the system first matches what your upper management desires. Also, the most important infrastructure change will encompass a change of culture among the employees to embrace the QMS system, and make it a working, living, viable part of the company.

 

[Al Dyer]

Welcome Steve!!

"Keep on truckin", this is a good place for experienced discussion covering all areas of industry.

Al...

 

[Stijloor]

You have learned one of many valuable lessons-don't take anything laying down. If you know you're right, stand up for it!!

You're darn right Brad!

Please don't take anything here too strongly. Most people have well-intentioned responses, and don't mean things personally.

Most people? Yes!

Stijloor.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Re: Whoa! Not so fast on the consultant trigger!

...
It appears you have a good enough grasp of the minimums needed to comply with a Standard, so you won't necessarily require a consultant until you and your organization have a good handle on the most efficient business processes which are both effective and user-friendly. At that point, you might want the objective consultant to walk through a gap analysis of your system with all of you to do final "tweaking." Folks in an organization normally do a better job of "follow-through" when they are working with a system they had a lot of input in creating.

I fully agree with including the whole organization, but I will disagree with how you intend to use the consultant. If you do all the hard work of cobbling together a system from what you learned, and what you gathered from here or there, by yourself, and then have him finish it off, you run the risk of having to undo and redo much of the system.

A (good) consultant has seen and worked with many systems. You are working on your first. It would be like me building an addition to my house, then having the professional builder put the finishing touches on it. Or building your own computers and network for the first time. You will make many mistakes, and leave many things less effective and efficient than they might be.

I applaud your energy, but better to work with a (good) consultant from the beginning, agree on the roadmap and framework, and decide which parts you will do and which he or she will do. This will allow you to control costs, but still get coordinated direction. Have meetings at certain milestones along the way, etc. This will save you far more than it costs, and put you on the path for a far superior system.

 

[JaneB]

Re: Whoa! Not so fast on the consultant trigger!

I will disagree with how you intend to use the consultant. If you do all the hard work of cobbling together a system from what you learned, and what you gathered from here or there, by yourself, and then have him finish it off, you run the risk of having to undo and redo much of the system.

A (good) consultant has seen and worked with many systems. You are working on your first. It would be like me building an addition to my house, then having the professional builder put the finishing touches on it. Or building your own computers and network for the first time. You will make many mistakes, and leave many things less effective and efficient than they might be.

Good analogy. Or, like someone building their own database application and then 'just bringing in the consultant at the end to tweak it a bit'.

I applaud your energy, but better to work with a (good) consultant from the beginning...

I wouldn't parenthesize (good) - ie, I wouldn't put it in brackets. Essential to have a good consultant. Anything less than good (from ordinary through to yuk) can be diabolical.

This tends to be my opinion also, but of course we both of us have to declare a possible bias here, given our professions
OTOH Steve says he has a good contact who's done this before. I've also noticed that some people with IT backgrounds can be very good at systems analysis (in the nature of their work!), although sometimes inclined to focus overly on process and technology at the expense of some other aspects of a good management system such as resources, especially people! and management.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Re: Whoa! Not so fast on the consultant trigger!

...
I wouldn't parenthesize (good) - ie, I wouldn't put it in brackets. Essential to have a good consultant. Anything less than good (from ordinary through to yuk) can be diabolical.

This tends to be my opinion also, but of course we both of us have to declare a possible bias here, given our professions
OTOH Steve says he has a good contact who's done this before. I've also noticed that some people with IT backgrounds can be very good at systems analysis (in the nature of their work!), although sometimes inclined to focus overly on process and technology at the expense of some other aspects of a good management system such as resources, especially people! and management.

I find the biggest weakness in systems are when they do not really understand the process approach. I see a lot of systems that are compliant, as to documentation, but miss the benefit of performance improvements inherent in the process approach.