Looking for alternatives to ISO 9001 accreditation

[Helmut Jilling]

IMHO,it doesn't make any sense for your company to get a ISO9000 certification unless your customer requires that.

Please remember, ISO 9001/14001 was created to help companies improve their systems, not because customers required ISO to write it. Customers began to require ISO 9001 because they perceived value in it.

 

[potdar]

If you do go the registration route don't be shy to negotiate fees. The registrars are in competition and the first estimate won't necessarily reflect the best deal available. I've just had a quote for additional assessment work reduced by 23% without much effort on my part.

It all depends on why you want to get registered. If you want a paper on the wall, herearounds you can buy one in the fish market. Search hard, you may find one in your local fish market.

If you want it for improvement, stick to good registrars but call for competing quotes and haggle hard. You will end up getting a nice discount as Tyker says.

Or else, just implement the systems and dont get registered as Jennifer suggested. We had a gentleman here who liked and implemented ISO 9002 in 1987 but never bothered to get registered. His reasoning - My product sells on its trade name. I dont need any third party to come in and stamp it as good. Sell it did till around 1999, when some export clients demanded ISO. By next week a copy of the certificate was faxed over. This was not from the fish market. The system was in place and functioning.

 

[[email protected]]

Suggestion,
Buy the standard, become familiar with it, implement the standard a little at atime. In the future if you are forced by a Major, (spelled $ $ $ $ $ $) customer you will be ready to change over.

I dont' know about the rest of you out there, but it seems more and more demands of registration are coming in these days. You must or else we will...

There are many people on this site who could and probably would write you're manual for you. You can save alot with a little elbow grease. Try to "self declare" for as long as you can.

 

[Colin]

Please remember, ISO 9001/14001 was created to help companies improve their systems, not because customers required it. Customers began to require it because they perceived value in it.

Hmmm, I thought that BS 5750 (the forerunner of ISO 9001) was a derivative of military standards which were 'forced' upon suppliers to the military. In other words, it was because customers required it.

Indeed, the early versions of BS 5750/ISO 9001 rarely helped companies to improve their systems at all.

 

[[email protected]]

The distribution arm of our organization has a database of approx. 3000 customers. Of the 3000, less than 10% "mandate" ISO registration. The rest of the people just want to buy products we sell and really don't care if we are Baldridge, ISO or nothing at all.

The problem for us was that the less than 10%, were the highest $ customers. Over 10 Million $ when you put em together. This drove ISO in our company. So I'm saying this will drive most companies, not the fact that they want to improve processes or any other horse.... we tell ourselves.

People want products that are perceived to be priced reasonably, that can be delivered in the time frame they need, and oh yea, they want the product to work.

Quality is mandatory, ISO itself cannot assure this will happen. All right, I'm steppin off...

 

[ralphsulser]

I think they were based on MIL-Q-9858, and MIL-Q-45208( as I remember the numbers). I worked with these standards many years ago due to Gov't. contracts and the DOD Rep. coming in to approve the products, and all the correct documentation before we could make a shipment.

 

[[email protected]]

What Raplh said ,I'm not familiar with the BS - which I presume is British Standard.

 

[Colin]

Sorry, should have explained, BS is British Standard. Before BS 5750 came the Allied Quality Assurance Procedures (AQAP's) and before them were the Mil standards. In the UK they were the 05 series if I remember rightly (a rare occurrence these days! ).

 

[ScottK]

I will echo "buy the standard, implement it at a reasonable rate, then claim compliance if anyone asks".

I guess it really depends on what the customer base is if you need to register or not. I'm in a machine shop type environment and we've done fine without registration for many years.
We're doing it now to make it a bit easier to get into certain markets (i.e. we will be able to provide a copy of our certificate instead of them sending an auditor to qualify our QMS).

 

[KWalls - 2008]

Re: Looking for alternatives for ISO 9000 accredition

RD,

I am with Jennifer on this one... I'm in the same position you are. We are a small CNC Mill shop with 7 employees. I am in charge of putting together the documentation of our quality system. We were in a rush to register, but now have backed off knowing that we can claim that we are compliant without registration. I have been working on our ISO 9K1: 2K now for about 4 months and have made a ton of progress with the help from the wonderful people here at the Cove. You will find their knowledge invaluable!! Do a few searches and save yourself some money by finding what you need here.

Like Marc says: "Never underestimate the power of a good search!"

And take the advice about buying the standard... I purchased the requirements and guidelines and that has helped immensely!

Good Luck!