Is ISO 9001:2000 a retrograde step ?

[M Greenaway]

Is ISO9001:2000 a retrograde step ?

A very interesting question !

Ken Rutter, who is a Fellow of the Institute of Quality Assurance, says in an article tracing the history of quality standards in this months 'Quality Professional' publication from the IQA:-

"ISO9000:2000 has omitted the term 'quality assurance' from the text and has made too many changes in an effort to bring it into line with the environmental standards. This is a retrograde step and should be corrected - bring back quality assurance."

Does he have a point ??

 

[Mike S.]

Isn't this just semantics? We still do QA. Don't you? Does ISO tell you not to? I don't get the point. Maybe I'm just not smart enought to understand it.

 

[Randy]

I don't think so because if the QMS operates in reality as it does in theory QA is built in. I think we find that in clause 7 or at least the steps necessary to make it happen. QA is a proactive process as is the theory of a 9K based QMS.

I can feel the hammer falling as I type....

 

[M Greenaway]

Mike

Do you then feel that there is no significant change to the standard ?

Is it purely semantics that the writers of ISO9001 dropped the term 'quality assurance' from the text ?

Or was it done for a reason ??

What about the claim that the standard has had too many changes to bring it into line with ISO14001 ??

 

[db]

I don't see a problem with QA not being mentioned. The idea is to meet customer requirements with the intent of enhancing customer satisfaction. You cannot do that without some level of QA.

 

[gpainter]

I believe that ISO is trying to get it thru our heads that the 00 standard is not a quality standard but a business standard.

 

[Mike S.]

Mike

Do you then feel that there is no significant change to the standard ?

Is it purely semantics that the writers of ISO9001 dropped the term 'quality assurance' from the text ?

Or was it done for a reason ??

What about the claim that the standard has had too many changes to bring it into line with ISO14001 ??

There are obvious changes to the standard that affect what I do and how I comply (need to show sequence and interaction of processes, CI requirement, etc. etc.). The fact that they dropped QA from the text has in itself not changed what I do in the least and I could not even have told you that was a change.

 

[David Hartman]

I believe that ISO is trying to get it thru our heads that the 00 standard is not a quality standard but a business standard.

Whether this was the intent of the TC-176 or not I don't know, but I just wish they would have gone a step further and removed ANY reference to the Standard as a "Quality" standard.

 

[Randy]

I'm trying to digest what some of you guys seem to think based upon what you have said.

gpainter seems to be on the right track. IMHO

What we have is a "Business Standard" that has been established to help establish a system of managing a core process, that of "Quality". The "standard" is fairly non-prescriptive in it's wording, requiring those who use it to be able to answer 134 "shall's", but allowing the freedom of determining how to do it. The "standard" doesn't establish quality, it just provides what has been determined to be the minimum mechanism necessary to manage it.

 

[ccochran]

You guys nailed all my thoughts! Great stuff.

I really liked the comments by David Hartman, gpainter, and Randy. ISO 9001:2000 focuses almost as much on managing a business as it does on ensuring product quality. It’s much less of a traditional QA standard than it used to be. I too wish the word “quality” was dropped from the text. Plain and simple, ISO 9001:2000 is a management system model, and quality just happens to be a piece of that.

There’s enough flexibility built into ISO 9001:2000 for people to use in a strategic manner or a more narrow QA manner. Companies who use ISO 9001:2000 in a narrow QA fashion probably aren’t getting much bang out of it. In that regard, I’d say it’s “retrograde.” Smart organizations will use ISO 9001:2000 in a strategic, robust manner, and there’s nothing retrograde about that. I guess it all comes down to how the standard is applied, right?

Craig

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Craig Cochran
Center for International Standards & Quality
Georgia Institute of Technology
[email protected]