Keeping the Passion of an ISO9001 System - How to promote your QMS

[Jilliebob]

Re: Keeping the Passion of ISO9001:2000 System - How to promote your QMS

Further, the most sure-fire way to keep quality in the radar screen at all times, is to make the financial connections (both tangible and intangible) about quality and money in the pocket (hopefully every one's pocket and not only top management's pocket) of those who can impact quality in the organization. The WIIIFM factor will always exist, either we like it or not. Incentivize quality. Have a dangling carrot. Show by example. Reward the right behaviors and accomplishments.
Forget banners, buttons, flags. They are not sustainable motivators.

As the quality technician in a small job shop that supplies a painting service for agricultural/automotive large-machine plastic body parts, I constantly deal with this problem. We have no ISO or QS9000 requirements, and thank goodness--no slogans or buttons! I hear we have a quality manual, but I have never seen it. We have had a continually rotating crew of temporary employees who are there because they need a paycheck for the time being.

Lately the crew has become more stable and I have hit on the financial incentive idea. I've begun telling them about the bonuses we used to get--when we could paint a part once and make money on it. There is no use loading a 9-foot long part onto the paint line if it has a defect that will show through the paint and will have to be re-worked. Fix it first! That's a gross over-simplification, but a good illustration of the problem.

You can't teach people to care with their hearts, but you can teach them to care with their wallets.


Jilliebob

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Re: Keeping the Passion of ISO9001:2000 System - How to promote your QMS

Do you have any suggestions on how to promote your ISO9001:2000 QMS?

What does your company do to keep the passion alive?

We have been certified for 11 years. We have banners throughout the facility, quality policy on the back of the employee badges, and purchased buttons and notebooks in the past. 33 folks are members of our internal auditor cross-functional team.

Please let me know how your keep the passion alive.

This PowerPoint might give you some good ideas...

Internal Improvement Audits - A Better Value-Added Approach to Audits.ppt

 

[JaneB]

Re: Keeping the Passion of ISO9001:2000 System - How to promote your QMS

This PowerPoint might give you some good ideas...

Brilliant stuff - really, really good. Loved what you said & lots of terrific advice, eg, very good idea calling them 'Improvement Audits' rather than Internal Audits.

And saying "We spend a great deal of effort on explaining what ISO is trying to do …not how to do ISO."

Back to the question from the OP: Depending on your field, another helpful tool might be using the 'voice of customers' - eg, using feedback from them in ways that communicate to people in your business how important what they do (all of them) is for customers.
For example, very often feedback may come in as ad hoc comments/emails etc that go to the sales/account management people for example, but often doesn't find its way down to the factory floor, for example.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Re: Keeping the Passion of ISO9001:2000 System - How to promote your QMS

...
You can't teach people to care with their hearts, but you can teach them to care with their wallets.

The one quote (other than the title), that I took away from the book, "Good to Great" by Jim Collins, is:

"The job of management is not in motivating their employees, the job of management is to remove the DE-MOTIVATING factors in their work place. Then, the employees will motivate themselves..."

Many people would like to care, but they have been conditioned to no longer care...

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Re: Keeping the Passion of ISO9001:2000 System - How to promote your QMS

Brilliant stuff - really, really good. Loved what you said & lots of terrific advice, eg, very good idea calling them 'Improvement Audits' rather than Internal Audits.

And saying "We spend a great deal of effort on explaining what ISO is trying to do …not how to do ISO."

Depending on your field, another helpful tool might be using the 'voice of customers' - eg, using feedback from them to show people in the business how important what they do (all of them) is for customers. Too often it's ad hoc comments that the sales/account management people get, that doesn't find its way down to the factory floor, for example.

Thanks. I am real pleased with the direction this thing is taking. I just completed a 3 day internal auditor training session based on a much expanded version of this. I was very pleased with how it went, and this batch of students left pretty knowledgeable and enthusiastic with the class and what they learned. They were actually eager to get back to their companies and get started.

The training actually went hand-n-hand with a comprehensive checksheet they learned to use that guides them through the steps of an effective process audit. Sort of a training wheels approach for new auditors. I expect to do more of these and see this roll out better. Definitely the kick start a lot of companies need.

I'll try to report feedback from them if they report any...

 

[JaneB]

Re: Keeping the Passion of ISO9001:2000 System - How to promote your QMS

this batch of students left pretty knowledgeable and enthusiastic with the class and what they learned. They were actually eager to get back to their companies and get started.

Yes, I can see why they would. I particularly liked the point you made about the process owner being the internal customer for the audit - this often escapes internal auditors.

Look forward to hearing how it goes.

 

[Jen Kirley]

Re: Keeping the Passion of ISO9001:2000 System - How to promote your QMS

Once quality starts to feel normal, it loses its sex appeal--if it ever had any.

Really, the thing requires ongoing effort in constantly helping people understand how their contributions are felt and appreciated. I agree than banners, buttons, coffee mugs etc. are not valuable--in fact they tend to have the opposite effect because people can guess their cost and understand they hold no actual function in the organization. I think over time we become wary of hype.

And that would be a good sign because it could signal that people are thinking in a businesslike fashion. As long as that means "business" is not feeding the rich via the efforts of the poor, that is...we do not want our people to think that's what business is about if we want them to keep trying.

We like rewards and recognition, don't we? Why not celebrate success with some suggested methods in a book like The 1001 Rewards and Recognitions Fieldbook by Nelson and Spitzer? It's perfectly okay to toot our horns a little about quality. We just want to do it in a way that will serve some constructive use.

 

[harry]

Re: Keeping the Passion of ISO9001:2000 System - How to promote your QMS

Good post and advice from a very experienced practitioner.

Most people forget that getting certified is just the first step and the beginning of a long journey. By itself, the QMS is of not much value! You need to manage it, nurture and grow it, cajole it and occasionally inject some zest into it for it to perform to your expectations and give returns - just like your marriage.

 

[amanbhai]

Re: Keeping the Passion of ISO9001:2000 System - How to promote your QMS

We do give due attention to Quality since the top level management is serious about ISO 9001.

 

[ronig]

Re: Keeping the Passion of ISO9001:2000 System - How to promote your QMS

I have started a campaign - with a slogan...

"Making the Quality Management System Our Mission"

At the start of every week I put out a question in an email with my slogan as the subject. At the end of the week, I put out the answer. Not everyone responds, but they all have at some point. The question forces them to open the standard and find the section that explains what they need to know. Its been fun for many and now, another plant has asked me to include them in the weekly emails.

See if it helps!