ISO 9001 News Tirelessly Improving the Brand Integrity of ISO 9001 - Working Group under ISO TC 176

[John Broomfield]

There is a difference between quality and efficiency though. The older brickwork may have been slow, but was pretty thorough, new stuff I see today, no matter how efficient, is not as good.

Making customers pay for our inefficiency is not quality. We create more customers when we reduce our costs while fulfilling their needs instead of expecting them to pay for our waste. If we share our cost savings then we may also create more successful customers. That I suggest is quality delivered from the customers’ point of view; not to mention our other stakeholders.

Today’s brickwork may not look as good but does it meet requirements?

 

[Bill Levinson]

Making customers pay for our inefficiency is not quality. We create more customers when we reduce our costs while fulfilling their needs instead of expecting them to pay for our waste. If we share our cost savings then we may also create more successful customers. That I suggest is quality delivered from the customers’ point of view; not to mention our other stakeholders.

Today’s brickwork may not look as good but does it meet requirements?

This is an excellent point because poor quality is only one of the Toyota production system's Seven Wastes. Any waste is an unnecessary cost for the customer, of which poor quality is only one. If brick layers lay only 125 bricks an hour when they could lay 350, the customer, as well as the workers (in the form of lower wages) and the investors (in the form of lower returns on investment) all pay for 225 bricks an hour that could have been laid but were not because of the bad job design.

My inclination would be that the next edition of ISO 9001 should address "waste" rather than "poor quality."

 

[Jim Wynne]

I wonder how we survived 200 years of industrialization without it.

We did, but jobs were being done nowhere nearly as well as they should have been done.

This doesn't address the question. Obviously, industrial methods have evolved and improved over the last 200 years, and the great majority of that time of continualous improvement was done without ISO 9001 or anything like it.

When the standard is in place and being used for its intended purpose, the quality problems don't happen and the standard is taken for granted. When the standard is absent (or not being used effectively), the consequences make themselves known pretty quickly.

I'm not sure I can agree with the idea that when the standard is in place and used for its intended purpose that quality problems don't happen. If by "intended purpose" you mean that the standard was devised and implemented in order to completely eliminate quality problems, you're making an argument that assumes its own conclusion.

Re: "They're spending $100,000 on this thing, and I can't get a nickel to improve the product." If the quality system, ISO 9001 or otherwise, identifies a risk or opportunity related to the product, and you can't get resources to act on it, then management is not using the standard properly. This applies to any quality program.

It has nothing to do with the standard. Just as progress has been made in industry before the advent of the standard, people do shortsighted things and make bad decisions just as they did in the past. You can't defend the standard or its widespread implementation by suggesting that if it's used "properly" everything will be OK.

 

[John Broomfield]

Developing and sharing standards for services and products make a lot of sense.

Extending this principal into the systems responsible for these services and products also makes sense.

Our problem is with the race to the bottom and a failure to maintain quality with accreditation and certification.

Calling this a problem with ISO 9001 only makes matters worse. It taints the standard while being powerless to make the necessary improvements in accreditation and certification.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Calling this a problem with ISO 9001 only makes matters worse. It taints the standard while being powerless to make the necessary improvements in accreditation and certification.

Accredited certification of management systems was intended to provide confidence to relevant interested parties in the global supply chain. It has been, however and unfortunately, devalued, commoditized and trivialized. It has become an “undeniable right”. You want it? you’ve got it. Just pay. No big deal.

So, instead of assurance and confidence, we end up with “certificates” and “no big deals”.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Our problem is with the race to the bottom and a failure to maintain quality with accreditation and certification.

I don't know what this means. Can you explain?

Calling this a problem with ISO 9001 only makes matters worse. It taints the standard while being powerless to make the necessary improvements in accreditation and certification.

Part of the problem is that the standard is already "tainted."

 

[John Broomfield]

I don't know what this means. Can you explain?

The term race to the bottom is used to characterize competition that has crossed ethical lines and could be destructive for the parties involved.

- Race to the Bottom Definition

 

[Jim Wynne]

The term race to the bottom is used to characterize competition that has crossed ethical lines and could be destructive for the parties involved.

- Race to the Bottom Definition

I was referring to the entire sentence.

 

[John Broomfield]

Sorry, I thought you were referring to my euphemism being as Sidney’s reply had covered the rest of this sentence where he said accredited certification had been devalued, commoditized and trivialized.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Too bad the results of this tireless work to restore the integrity of ISO 9001 can not be made public.