Quality System or Business Management System?

[Dave Maijala]

Great, thanks!

 

[TRshepherd]

In my mind there is a distinct difference between a "Quality Manage System" and a "Business Management System" that being scope.

For example: ISO 9001:2008 is a "Quality Manage System" as the scope is typically related to quality systems only. Whereas TS16949 is truely a "Business Management System" and the scope is much deeper and broader encompessing Finance and nearly every aspect of the business and what systems make it run.

Tom

 

[SuperGirl]

I don't believe it matter what a business calls it, as long as it meets the requirements and is being followed. We call ours, our Quality Mangement System. We incorporate all areas of business, including finical. We are small, so our quality system is really all about how we operate. By incorporating everyone (all departmental areas) it increases moral and everyone is more accepting and understanding of quality and the need for it.

 

[MGMTREP]

For an idea to be a powerful, day-to-day reality, it must become part of the fabric of one?s life. The idea must migrate from the forced, deliberate realization of its truth to become the natural way of thinking. Organizational cultures are no different, especially when it comes to integrating quality concepts and initiatives as fundamental to the most productive natural order of things.

But organizations have struggled. Even those that truly want to improve the quality of their processes, products and services seem to hit a wall when it comes to making quality a ?breathing in/breathing out? function. Truth be told, the business is seen as distinct from the function and process of quality. Quality is often functionally, if not organizationally, relegated to a department within the business.

In my view, this is analogous to ordering a cup of hot tea, but never putting the tea bag into the hot water. As long as the tea bag remains outside of the hot water, all one has is the possibility of hot tea.

But when the tea bag (quality mindset) is place in the hot water (business systems), the result is a liquid in which the two components are indistinguishable from one another. What?s more, the longer the business systems are directly influenced by the quality mindset the stronger the result. Even when the teabag is removed, the residual effect remains. In other words, quality has become irreversibly one with the business.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Quality is often functionally, if not organizationally, relegated to a department within the business.

If the top management of any organization does not understand what Quality management is all about, we can call it "My pot of GOLD Management System" and, still, nothing will change. I think that, if we focused on making top management understand what Quality Management really means, rather than playing with words and semantics, we would be better served.

As I have tried exhaustively to make a case in the Why do so many ISO 9001 Implementation Programs Fail? thread, the ONLY sustainable and cost effective approach to quality management is by making quality (product conformity, customer satisfaction, continual improvement, effectiveness and efficiency drive) embedded in the business processes. Organizations that misperceive quality as the responsibility of a single function/department are operating in the dark ages of the Management continuum.

Folks, there are several reasons for this to happen, but, by and large, the primary culprit is the misunderstanding of how ISO 9001 should be implemented. Going straight to the point, most quality programs fail because organizations don?t understand the difference between management of quality and managing FOR Quality.

Managing for quality is the concept that the organization business processes are designed, maintained and improved to incorporate proper quality principles and practices. So, quality and customer satisfaction become the natural result of running the organization?s business processes. Managing for quality requires that each process owner will ensure their processes have the appropriate requirements for effective and efficient quality, environmental, occupational health & safety (to name a few disciplines) embedded in the process. For example, a New Product Introduction Process (which is a key process for many organizations) goes across several departments and functions and transcends the requirements of ISO 9001 section 7.3. But, instead of developing, maturing and improving the NPI process, what do many organizations do? They have a procedure to comply with 7.3 of ISO 9001. Instead of someone at the Engineering function being appointed as the NPI process owner, someone in the quality function will be responsible to baby-sit the organization for compliance against 7.3. There are tremendous implications in the different approaches. While the first approach promotes process ownership by the appropriate individuals, the second approach promotes the unsustainable path of someone from quality ?policing? other departments (such as Engineering) to ensure they go through their necessary steps of planning, input, review, output, verification and validation. Such path is ineffective and can not be sustained over time.

Any organization has business process to operate. The key for effective and sustainable ISO 9001 implementation and certification is to make ISO 9001 INVISIBLE to most people working there. Comply with the standard(s) by embedding the applicable requirements into the business processes. That is the way to do it. Conformance with voluntary standards should be similar with compliance with legal requirements: it should happen as a natural deployment of a process that was designed to comply with the law. The operator on the shop floor should not be required to know the law(s) (such as FDA, EPA, OSHA, etc.). S/he should simply be required to follow the established process.

So, why don?t more organizations experience this epiphany? Unfortunately, in many cases ISO 9001 implementation and certification is misperceived by top management, as something that the quality folks can do in isolation and ?in absentia? of the rest of the organization. And, in many cases, the quality professionals ?tasked? with ISO 9001 implementation and certification are not proficient either in ?business-process-language?.

 

[Dave Maijala]

Thanks, Sidney. I agree - and that's why I think it MIGHT be better to strike the phrase "quality system". Right or wrong, when folks in the company say, "this is a business issue", when referring to some events and say, "this is a quality issue", when referring to others, I must assume (based on my experience) that the two issues aren't seen as connected, or even of the same improtance...so while a way to raise the notion that quality must exist in everything that's done is to make it indistinguishable from the business, that might best begin in the language folks in the business use to communicate. Anyway, I happen to notice today that some registrars, like DNV, issue 'Management System Certificates' for AS9100, etc.; "quality system" isn't mentioned on the certification at all. Let the fun begin:

 

[kgott]

In my mind there is a distinct difference between a "Quality Manage System" and a "Business Management System" that being scope.

For example: ISO 9001:2008 is a "Quality Manage System" as the scope is typically related to quality systems only. Whereas TS16949 is truely a "Business Management System" and the scope is much deeper and broader encompessing Finance and nearly every aspect of the business and what systems make it run.

Tom

For so long as at least one system is a 'planned and systematic way of doing things' then I'm happy to call it a busienss mangement system. Leaderhsip has to begin somewhere and if others can be or want to be included later so much the better.

 

[Peter Fraser]

A slightly different perspective, perhaps...

Your (business) management system is "how you run the business", ("achieve your objectives", "get work done"...).

Your QMS is "how you manage those aspects of running the business that affect the quality of what you produce for your customer".

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Your QMS is "how you manage those aspects of running the business that affect the quality of what you produce for your customer".

Well said, Peter. Quality, is a (very important one) component of running a business, but still, just one of many components that must be managed.

Proponents of the misnaming seem not understand that there is much more to business processes than the quality piece alone.

The one thing I believe is missing from your piece defining the role of the QMS is the fact that a QMS should drive for process effectiveness and efficiency. External customers are, for the most part, concerned with product conformity. Indirectly, if a QMS does not drive for continual improvement in effectiveness and efficiency, the organization will become noncompetitive in the market place.

Anyway, I happen to notice today that some registrars, like DNV, issue 'Management System Certificates' for AS9100, etc.; "quality system" isn't mentioned on the certification at all.

That is because the same certificate template is used for multiple standards. One just need to look at the title of AS9100 (or ISO 9001, or ISO/TS 16949, etc...) to realize that the standard deals with QUALITY management.

Once again, not the management of quality, but the management (of the business processes) FOR Quality.

 

[Randy]

A truly effective quality system is one that operates "invisibly" or as a normal business practice and not some other "special" thing that has to be managed in order for that to happen "it" needs to melt into everything that is done. As long as you have a "special" way and name to manage quality, quality management will never be "because that's just the way it's done around here"