Study: Companies, employees benefit directly from ISO 9001

[Richard Pike]

Ok, fair enough. Each is entitled to their opinions. However, it lends substantially more credence to your position if you could provide some rationale why this paper (Harvard professors I think) is complete rubbish.

So... in your opinion, are there supposed to be papers published on quality programs? How are they to be designed? Who is to publish them? What are they to say? Who is to lead the quality movement into the future?

I mean those sincerely. What path are we supposed to go down, if in your opinion, the mentioned article is completely missing it?

Fair Enough! The paper smacks of "paper for paper" sake in order to gain credits towards some academic credo. It is so obviously written by A Typical theorists for A Typical credit purposes -- and I,m not going any further than that. If I am wrong, then sincere apologies, not for the conclusion, which I stand by; but for the reasoning supporting that conclusion.

Perhaps a small question: (or answer). Is anybody here - many many sensible and experienced people - not aware that companies with "good management" run better than those with poor management.

It is akin to saying Companies with better bottom lines make more money!

For the second part of your critique; I have no solid idea (passion, but no -idea) other than it has to be different from what we are currently doing.

Within Problem Solving; the first step is to admit there is a problem and this may be the starting point.

From there I would look to (and gain consensus on) the things that generally are good and on the opposite side, the things that (again by consensus) are generally bad.

And from there - who knows?

So - on a practical note; I for one would be fascinated with a constructive evaluation, starting with gaining consensus on a short list of what the quality industry is doing right. Just 5 things for which there are NOT strong opposing views.

I can think of lots wrong - and of the top of my head simply cannot think of one right thing the quality industry is doing to which there would not be strong opposing views.

Sorry, I just thought of one.... forums such as this that encourage interaction between peers, provide a base for the less experienced to learn and a pulpit for those potential future leaders who may or may not be out there.

 

[BradM]

Fair Enough! The paper smacks of "paper for paper" sake in order to gain credits towards some academic credo. It is so obviously written by A Typical theorists for A Typical credit purposes -- and I,m not going any further than that. If I am wrong, then sincere apologies, not for the conclusion, which I stand by; but for the reasoning supporting that conclusion.

Again, your opinion, and you are entitled to it. It does not matter why the paper was written and to whom. It makes a contribution to the body of knowledge, and quality professionals should be grateful for researchers working on quality.

Perhaps a small question: (or answer). Is anybody here - many many sensible and experienced people - not aware that companies with "good management" run better than those with poor management.

It is akin to saying Companies with better bottom lines make more money!

Your two statements have nothing to do with equating quality management systems with increased performance. The opposite would suggest that any company without a quality management system is poorly managed, and makes no money.

Hence the control group in this study. A random selection out of both will contain well ran companies, mediocre companies, and poorly ran companies. There are a litany of threads here that will testify there are organizations with ISO certifications that are poorly ran.

For the second part of your critique; I have no solid idea (passion, but no -idea) other than it has to be different from what we are currently doing.

Within Problem Solving; the first step is to admit there is a problem and this may be the starting point.

From there I would look to (and gain consensus on) the things that generally are good and on the opposite side, the things that (again by consensus) are generally bad.

And from there - who knows?

So - on a practical note; I for one would be fascinated with a constructive evaluation, starting with gaining consensus on a short list of what the quality industry is doing right. Just 5 things for which there are NOT strong opposing views.

I can think of lots wrong - and of the top of my head simply cannot think of one right thing the quality industry is doing to which there would not be strong opposing views.

Sorry, I just thought of one.... forums such as this that encourage interaction between peers, provide a base for the less experienced to learn and a pulpit for those potential future leaders who may or may not be out there.

You have made my case. I think sometimes it's easy for us to become critical of published work, and nay say their relevance, findings, etc. (me included). But at least they are doing something. At least in good journals, they have decent theory, appropriate statistical analysis, and inferences equal to the power of their data to make such inferences.

We have another life cycle to move into. We must take the work of the fathers (Deming, Shewhart, Juran, etc.) and move forward. Academia is not without it faults, and no published journal is not without its weak- nesses and holes. But practitioner and academia need to join together; to work more on advancing knowledge, and less on building walls to protect from each other.

 

[Miner]

I tend to view these things with a heavy dose of skepticism, but I at least read and understand before criticizing.

As I suggested in my initial post in this thread, I think the fatal component of the study is a false dichotomy, that being the division of certified and non-certified companies without regard for the existence of non-certified companies that are (a) compliant with ISO 9001 or (b) performing well without adherence to any sort of standard.

A better approach would have been to analyze three groups (certified; compliant, but not certified; and non-compliant). This would have answered the question of whether certification makes the difference or simple compliance.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

A better approach would have been to analyze three groups (certified; compliant, but not certified; and non-compliant). This would have answered the question of whether certification makes the difference or simple compliance.

I agree that it would be better. But how, do you suggest, one could determine if a company is compliant but not certified? A self declaration, with no criteria attached? Would you put credence in that?

There is a percentage of companies that are certified but not compliant (at least with the intent of the standard). So, I can only imagine how we would determine if an organization complies with the standard if they are not certified.

 

[Jim Wynne]

I agree that it would be better. But how, do you suggest, one could determine if a company is compliant but not certified? A self declaration, with no criteria attached? Would you put credence in that?

There is a percentage of companies that are certified but not compliant (at least with the intent of the standard). So, I can only imagine how we would determine if an organization complies with the standard if they are not certified.

We wouldn't need to determine whether they were actually compliant or not; the category would be companies that claim compliance. If there were data that show that certified companies have outperformed companies not certified but claiming compliance, that would add considerable weight to the value of certification.

Unfortunately, there are no publicly-accessible databases of companies that claim compliance, so in practical terms the idea probably wouldn't work. Speaking to Miner's suggestion, I also think it's unlikely to find a lot of companies that would readily admit to being noncompliant.

 

[Richard Pike]

It makes a contribution to the body of knowledge, and quality professionals should be grateful for researchers working on quality.

Sorry but I guess we are going to have to agree to differ. I stand by my opinion of the Paper and cannot for the life of me understand why you are defending it.

I certainly am not grateful for "researchers" cherry picking facts and making conclusion that are dubious at best, misleading at worst and in both cases stating the absolute obvious!

PS Did anybody really expect the conclusion to be _ Organizations with effective QMS perform worse than Organizations without.!!!???

 

[howste]

Sorry but I guess we are going to have to agree to differ. I stand by my opinion of the Paper and cannot for the life of me understand why you are defending it.

I certainly am not grateful for "researchers" cherry picking facts and making conclusion that are dubious at best, misleading at worst and in both cases stating the absolute obvious!

PS Did anybody really expect the conclusion to be _ Organizations with effective QMS perform worse than Organizations without.!!!???

I find it interesting that in this thread you have nothing but criticism for a study based on data and facts, and in this thread you make sweeping statements and support your conclusions only with vague references to "the general press" with no actual data.

Althought I consider myself to be open minded on the topics in both in this thread and the other, I'm unconvinced of your opinions in both threads primarily because all you've done is emphatically state your opinions with no supporting evidence. I appreciate your passion, but I'd prefer more facts and less exclamation marks (!!!) trying to emphasize your unsupported opinions.

 

[Richard Pike]

I find it interesting that in this thread you have nothing but criticism for a study based on data and facts, and in this thread you make sweeping statements and support your conclusions only with vague references to "the general press" with no actual data.

Althought I consider myself to be open minded on the topics in both in this thread and the other, I'm unconvinced of your opinions in both threads primarily because all you've done is emphatically state your opinions with no supporting evidence. I appreciate your passion, but I'd prefer more facts and less exclamation marks (!!!) trying to emphasize your unsupported opinions.

Sorry you feel that way and sorry you have decided to get personal in defense of your own opinions.

 

[Phiobi]

I picked up this report a few days ago and put it in my ever incresaing folder of things to read one day, when there is nothing better to do

Having read this though I am moving to the folder.... this must be worth making time to read today

I will come back and barate all of you unsubstantiated abuse though if it is not as good as this thread

 

[Phiobi]

Prepare to be berated!!!

As you can see from the gap between posts I have had a quick flick through as to be honest I got bored after the first few pages.

It looks very detailed, shame it was only in 1 area of America and not a bit wider. I might have missed this but I would assume by just looking in one area they are not calculating any factors for local business success due to the success of the local echonomy itself?!?

One of the big statements for me was that it costs $97k to $560k to implement ISO9001... is that true? It seems extremely high compared to what I see as total costs in year 1 of ISO9001 in the UK.

I did pick up on a few other things, but I need to read some more before I can comment.

To be honest though an abridged version of the report or soundbites, once it has been pier reviewed would be a good thing when people are trying to demonstrate the benefits of ISO9001 and it can only help the industry??

Does the IAQG or any similar organisation have the ability to review such documents for validity?

I was only joking about berating you