Why do so many ISO 9001 Implementation Programs Fail?

[suildur]

I personally believe that ISO 9001 is based on sound principles, and in general the principles are supported by the requirements. When organizations fail to implement a system that is based on the principles (such as Leadership, Involvement of People, and Factual Approach to Decision Making) and only base it on meeting requirements, it will never be as successful as it could be.

That is it. Most of the time establishing a QMS consists of standard's "standard" requirements; I mean, you begin with clause 4.1 and go on.

But, there are 8 principles of ISO 9001, which gives you the "code of conduct" for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving ISO 9001.

Well... Who follows them?

And, what happens if you don't follow them and just try to stick with the clauses?

It is that simple... You may have a minimal QMS but good leaders, sufficient participants and resources, let the initiative solve most of the problems, give the objective datas lead your managerial decisions, then gather the fruits of the QMS.

On the other hand, tons of papers which were consumed for absolutely nothing... Tree killers!

By the way, the numbers are really interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

[JaneB]

Most of the time establishing a QMS consists of standard's "standard" requirements; I mean, you begin with clause 4.1 and go on.

Huh? You do not. None of the regular participants in the forum for example, advocate that approach! It completely misses the boat. I have been helping others get certification for many years now, and I have never ever begun 'with clause 4.1'.

The organization shall establish, document, implement and maintain a quality management system and continually improve its effectiveness in accordance with the requirements of this International Standard.

In fact, the first sentence of 4.1 (above) is the end result after having implemented the system. It's a goal, but definitely not by any means a suitable first step in implementing 9001. Don't mistake the order of the requirements for the recommended implementation. This would be a major misunderstanding.

But, there are 8 principles of ISO 9001, which gives you the "code of conduct" for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving ISO 9001.

Well... Who follows them?

Intelligent - or even just plain sensible - and well informed people who understand ISO 9001 and quality management or who want to do better.

And, what happens if you don't follow them and just try to stick with the clauses?

You get a less than optimal (or plain awful) system.

Your reference to:

tons of papers which were consumed for absolutely nothing... Tree killers!

suggests a serious misunderstanding of what an ISO 9001 system is - or can and should be. It is not all about tons of papers. Far from it.

Howste makes excellent points - their are common factors that help any project succeeed. If they're not there, the project is unlikely to succeed. It isn't to do with whether it's ISO 9001 or 6 Sigma. That's a red herring.

 

[suildur]

Huh? You do not. None of the regular participants in the forum for example, advocate that approach! It completely misses the boat. I have been helping others get certification for many years now, and I have never ever begun 'with clause 4.1'.


In fact, the first sentence of 4.1 (above) is the end result after having implemented the system. It's a goal, but definitely not by any means a suitable first step in implementing 9001. Don't mistake the order of the requirements for the recommended implementation. This would be a major misunderstanding.


Intelligent - or even just plain sensible - and well informed people who understand ISO 9001 and quality management or who want to do better.


You get a less than optimal (or plain awful) system.

Your reference to:


suggests a serious misunderstanding of what an ISO 9001 system is - or can and should be. It is not all about tons of papers. Far from it.

Howste makes excellent points - their are common factors that help any project succeeed. If they're not there, the project is unlikely to succeed. It isn't to do with whether it's ISO 9001 or 6 Sigma. That's a red herring.

Well, I think I have gone too far with irony and exaggeration which probably made you understand completely contrary. I "absolutely" do not have an approach like that where I "never" mean it is paper work.

Please accept my apologizes, if I ever enter a post here again, I will write anything as obviously and plain as I can.

 

[Jen Kirley]

Well, I think I have gone too far with irony and exaggeration which probably made you understand completely contrary. I "absolutely" do not have an approach like that where I "never" mean it is paper work.

Please accept my apologizes, if I ever enter a post here again, I will write anything as obviously and plain as I can.

I hope that you will continue to post here. We are a forum that values trust in what we represent in our posts. Sarcasm is absolutely allowed though, but our meaning is made clear by including the "smilies" emoticon: In this way we strive to be well understood.

As always, some degree of caution when posting our viewpoints may be worthwhile because of the enormous diversity here: of education, experience, cultural references, industry, age, and many others. Keeping aware of this has helped me carefully focus on neutral, "King's English" vernacular and plain-speak points. I'm not familiar with the extent of your experiences here, but I wanted to point that out nonetheless.

I hope this helps! I hope you will continue to feel welcome.

 

[BradM]

I hope that you will continue to post here. We are a forum that values trust in what we represent in our posts. Sarcasm is absolutely allowed though, but our meaning is made clear by including the "smilies" emoticon: In this way we strive to be well understood.

As always, some degree of caution when posting our viewpoints may be worthwhile because of the enormous diversity here: of education, experience, cultural references, industry, age, and many others. Keeping aware of this has helped me carefully focus on neutral, "King's English" vernacular and plain-speak points. I'm not familiar with the extent of your experiences here, but I wanted to point that out nonetheless.

I hope this helps! I hope you will continue to feel welcome.

Excellent points, Jennifer (as usual).

 

[suildur]

I hope that you will continue to post here. We are a forum that values trust in what we represent in our posts. Sarcasm is absolutely allowed though, but our meaning is made clear by including the "smilies" emoticon: In this way we strive to be well understood.

As always, some degree of caution when posting our viewpoints may be worthwhile because of the enormous diversity here: of education, experience, cultural references, industry, age, and many others. Keeping aware of this has helped me carefully focus on neutral, "King's English" vernacular and plain-speak points. I'm not familiar with the extent of your experiences here, but I wanted to point that out nonetheless.

I hope this helps! I hope you will continue to feel welcome.

Well, I kept posting here, if the topic was something which I could help others, as much as I had time to check here. However, I sometimes doubt posting something as there are some really magnificent fantastic, and foremost, exceptional quality gurus around. So, why would I spent anyone's time by making them read my posts if some guru already has the absolute answer which he/she can lead them to absolute reality? Maybe, it would be better for amateurs and less informed people -like me- to shut up and just read or let a guru come and judge the best.

Unfortunately, what you raise as a viewpoint doesnot help. If someone will judge anyone in general means, he/she'd better look up for his/her general views, which probably means to read -at least- the post before his/her last post; especially before being somewhat offensive while judging him/her. Or, maybe, he/she'd better think if everyone's getting the same idea out of the text as he/she does, while, the text may be telling something completely different.

Whatever... Take your time, don't bother. That is completely personal.

You are doing a really good work here in the cove which I always admire. So... I honestly beg others' pardon with this personal post which shouldn't be here in any means. I entered here as I was addressed here, but will not anymore.

 

[BradM]

Well, I kept posting here, if the topic was something which I could help others, as much as I had time to check here. However, I sometimes doubt posting something as there are some really magnificent fantastic, and foremost, exceptional quality gurus around. So, why would I spent anyone's time by making them read my posts if some guru already has the absolute answer which he/she can lead them to absolute reality? Maybe, it would be better for amateurs and less informed people -like me- to shut up and just read or let a guru come and judge the best.

Unfortunately, what you raise as a viewpoint doesnot help. If someone will judge anyone in general means, he/she'd better look up for his/her general views, which probably means to read -at least- the post before his/her last post; especially before being somewhat offensive while judging him/her. Or, maybe, he/she'd better think if everyone's getting the same idea out of the text as he/she does, while, the text may be telling something completely different.

Whatever... Take your time, don't bother. That is completely personal.

You are doing a really good work here in the cove which I always admire. So... I honestly beg others' pardon with this personal post which shouldn't be here in any means. I entered here as I was addressed here, but will not anymore.

Oh... on the complete contrary.

The "gurus" as you suggest, started here just like you: people with a passion for quality. We have all made mistakes, and we have all learned.
I learn every single day, many times from people correcting what I post.

Shake it off; don't worry about it. I have found that it's best to give everyone the benefit of the doubt here. That... I may think they are going personal, but really aren't.

The Cove is more about "passion" than anything. Passion for quality, passion for improvement, passion for becoming better. To Sidney's original topic, the reason why many implementations fail is because there is no passion. There is a drive to get the certificate, but not to improve; to get better.

So just saying, keep in mind that I use the Cove to get better. Most times I learn something; not that I had no knowledge, but that the knowledge I had was somehow flawed. So I get better knowledge. I hope that once in a blue moon, someone may pick up a thing or two from me.

But I will have a difficult time learning anything, if I don't get involved. So, welcome to the Cove! It's people like you that build this place. It's people like you today; who become the "gurus" of tomorrow.

 

[BradM]

So, in summary, I contend that if you want to have an effective ISO 9001 conforming QMS, make ISO 9001 invisible to most of the workforce. A few people should be aware of the requirements, in order to ensure that the business processes comply with the standard, but most of the workforce should not have to be exposed to ISO 9001, just like most people in a company are not trained in regulatory and statutory legal requirements which must be adhered, by the organization.

Comments, anyone?

Absolutely agree.

We had a minister at our church who totally understood this. He would never use the word "change". He would state we are going to "initiate an enhancement in a couple of weeks everyone will get to participate in", or something to that effect. He was brilliant at working in change, without even the most resistant change resistors would pick up on.

The problem with doing this, though, is the business will have to invest some money in a qualified quality guide to pull this off. Something with which they many times skimp on.

 

[kgott]

I agree with those who take the view that ISO 9001 is a framework for managing all sorts of business processes and its a standard that other standards dovetail into, Its an overarching framework.
yes; quality in many instances involves a quality policeman
yes; safety also requires a safety policeman. These two points tells us something.

but, also but; I believe that an issue that sourrounds quality is the definition of the word quality. Everyone talks about quality but I've noticed that no-one asks the question, what do we mean by quality. I have noticed this in all the organsiations I have been associated with regarding quality.

Defining this word in most organsiations becomes something of a nightmare and has become something of an undiscussible topic. .

All I'm pointing out here is that I think defining what quality means in a given organsation is a part of the problem you have raised and described which I'm glad you have as I'm sure this is key problem for us all.

Thanks for the post of on this subject and I'm very interested in seeing what the very knowledgeable and experiened on this forum have to say about this topic.

 

[Jen Kirley]

Well, I kept posting here, if the topic was something which I could help others, as much as I had time to check here. However, I sometimes doubt posting something as there are some really magnificent fantastic, and foremost, exceptional quality gurus around. So, why would I spent anyone's time by making them read my posts if some guru already has the absolute answer which he/she can lead them to absolute reality? Maybe, it would be better for amateurs and less informed people -like me- to shut up and just read or let a guru come and judge the best.

Unfortunately, what you raise as a viewpoint doesnot help. If someone will judge anyone in general means, he/she'd better look up for his/her general views, which probably means to read -at least- the post before his/her last post; especially before being somewhat offensive while judging him/her. Or, maybe, he/she'd better think if everyone's getting the same idea out of the text as he/she does, while, the text may be telling something completely different.

Whatever... Take your time, don't bother. That is completely personal.

You are doing a really good work here in the cove which I always admire. So... I honestly beg others' pardon with this personal post which shouldn't be here in any means. I entered here as I was addressed here, but will not anymore.

I absolutely do understand not feeling... well enough qualified to add value to a discussion. Indeed you will find me posting fairly infrequently here because I believe in many subjects I have nothing of value to offer beyond that of other, more learned and experienced professionals in a given topic.

When that happens I will wait for something closer to the center of my expertise, which is human performance and auditing. However, I have a diverse set of experiences in applying technical subjects in a small business environment. That is something I can share, and do when I feel the readers and posters may benefit from my layman's-level perspective, knowing that I may be judged for it but not pilloried. We moderators are defenders of dignity here, and respond to people behaving too harshly - one can click on the little red-and-white triangle icon in the blue bar above each post and report abuse. We do respond to that but it may be hard for you to tell.

And so it is the same as I remember, years ago, when I first participated in ASQ's exam editing sessions for Certified Mechanical Inspector exam. One lady openly doubted she could add any value to the work, as she wasn't very experienced in QA. We insisted otherwise. I told her then, as I tell you now, that she was perhaps the most important team member of all because she could tell us when we stopped making sense.

And so I hope you will contribute, not because you think you have more to offer but because you have insights from your own real-world experiences that add to the spectrum we represent. I hope you will feel welcome.