Dear Francis,
According to my understanding of your posting, bye the term "self certification" your superior meant to say whether the ISO 9001:2000 (I am specifically mentioning about ISO 9k) can be implemented without engaging the services of a consultant !!!! If so then my answer is possible..but you have to ask yourself whether you can devote how much time apart from your daily job schedule !!!!!
In my experience of working as a lead auditor in a leading CB , I have seen some very good self created and self maintained QMS's , although very few.
If you want to follow a strict time schedule you have to prepare a time chart where in you have to assign rigid time frame for the documentation and other relevent issues.
The following may be your course of action point and priority wise:
1. Form a quality steering commitee with atleast one decision makink member from the Top mnagement.
2. Go for ISO awareness / internal auditor / lead assessor training , so that all the commitee members know about the QMS. You have to take the help of a third party in doing this.
3. Define the scope of QMS and Audit
4.Your top management should define the quality policy , mission and vision statement of the QMS/ Organization
5.Identify the the exclusions (if any)
6.Complete the documentation process, documentation includes quality manual, at least 6 mandatory procedures, work instructions, quality plans, document and record formats, the quality manuals and procedures should be in line with the ISO 9K standard requirements.
7.Start collecting data in the designed formats and records
8. Register with the CB, you must ensure that you have implemented the QMS atleast for 3 months before the final third party audit.
9. Go for the first cycle of internal audits and MRM.
10.Go for CAPA based on the internal audit findings.
11.Call the third party CB for pre-asessment audit ( You can skip this step if you are confident on your own system.
12. call the third party for the final certification audit.
This is the total certification process in a nutshell. If you go for a consultant, it will make your life easy as they will do the time framing for all this steps..and help you out in all the difficulties you are facing during following these outline.
But afterall it is your organization which has to take the initiative.
Cheers
Arindam
. The very purpose of the cove is to help and get help as and when required. During my earlier days in the cove, I was a bit shaky , because I was not quite sure how the covites are going to behave in reaction to my so called "nonsense" questions 
; But I must appreciate that I was wrong. Every experienced covite has tried to guide me in the best possible way. Thats the best part of the cove. Thank you all. Now I am sort of addicted to it..and find it quite uneasy if i am not able to reach to the cove.Let the quest continue.
