At ***DEAD LINK REMOVED*** there's an article on 'Quality Software'. However, expect this link to expire soon as it's part of their 'current' magazine edition.
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by Mary Beth Nilles
"It's no secret that successful organizations share best practices internally and then improve upon them. In fact, this is one of the primary reasons that standards such as ISO 9000:2000, ISO 14000 and QS-9000 emphasize a process approach to achieve improvement. Complying with these standards means implementing a philosophy of ongoing process evaluation, improvement and measurement. Like most things worth achieving, it's easy to say that you agree, but it's sometimes hard to do.
Of course, this is made all the more challenging by the standards' flexibility. They state what needs to be accomplished but don't dictate how to do it. In addition, the 20-clause format of the ISO 9000:1994 series is out; ISO 9000:2000's eight management principles are in. This flexibility is somewhat of a mixed blessing because some organizations are confused about how to organize and manage their quality or environmental management system processes. Those companies that do successfully comply with ISO 9001, QS-9000 or ISO 14001 have found a way to organize their business processes to follow the new standards' management principles. Many have found that the most effective tool for doing so is the right software.
The million-dollar question, sometimes literally, is, "What's the right software?"
Conquering customization
Let's start with what software is not: a customized packaged program. After years of trying to organize quality management systems on paper, quality managers were delighted when software providers started offering "complete QMS packages" to automate the system.
Unfortunately, many managers discovered that most packages don't work without modification. Remember, programmers, not quality managers, design these software packages. They know code; they know platforms; they don't know quality management. Even if the programs do have QMS input, they are created to serve customers in a wide variety of industries. Users notice this and complain that the packages just don't fit the way their company does things. Sometimes entire applications are missing."