vanputten said:
Hello Peter:
What would you call it and how does the term you propose translate into French and Spanish?
Also, can you clarify why the term is counter productive and does not help the cause of quality?
There are other terms that may fall into the same category; production and service provision, montioring and measuring devices, statitical tools. I have never heard somone ask about a monitoring "device". I have never heard anyone discuss a produciton or service "provision." I have never heard anyone ask what statistical "tool" was used.
Thank you, Dirk
Hi Dirk
I am not even sure that I know what "it" is, never mind knowing why it needs a name. I take it to be "the creation and provision of goods and services for a third party" - but the requirements in Section 7 of the standard should be applied to all processes, not just ones relating to the needs of an external customer.
Think of it this way: according to ISO9000:2000, a "product" is "
the result of a process", so "realising a product" must be "
following a process through from start to finish". And since organisations operate by following processes every minute of the day, this seems to cover just about everything that moves in a company.
The confusion comes from the fact that ISO9000:2000 says that a "customer" can be internal or external, but ISO9001:2000 then uses the term
purely in relation to an external customer, and "product" in relation to what is provided to that external body.
If the English is not clear - or even misleading - there seems little point in translating it!
Your other examples ("devices", "provision" etc) are widely used and understood in the UK - maybe that just underlines (or is it "underscores"?) how non-standard the English language is? I don't think that a standard sholud be written in terms that make for easy translation - the prime objective should be to make them clear and relevant in the language in whih they are written. A translation may need to explain terms in a different way - but if the original is fuzzy the translation can only be worse.
[I have just "translated" some process management terms into broad Scots. It is interesting to try to translate them back into English - it doesn't always work!]