Why do so many ISO 9001 Implementation Programs Fail?

[Sidney Vianna]

I agree, take the "Quality" out of Quality Management System. I'm tired of telling everyone here that it isn't my system (Quality Supervisor), it's everyone's system.

Thank you for the thoughtful contribution. I just don't think the solution is the removal of the word quality. The answer, in my point of view, is the education of all on what quality is and the role that everyone plays in achieving and improving quality. If we start equating quality with business excellence, rather than inspection, bureaucracy and paper work, we would be on the right track.

There is a deep, cultural, corporate misunderstanding of what quality management really is. Until we fix that, we will have an uphill battle.

 

[John Broomfield]

Thank you for the thoughtful contribution. I just don't think the solution is the removal of the word quality. The answer, in my point of view, is the education of all on what quality is and the role that everyone plays in achieving and improving quality. If we start equating quality with business excellence, rather than inspection, bureaucracy and paper work, we would be on the right track.

There is a deep, cultural, corporate misunderstanding of what quality management really is. Until we fix that, we will have an uphill battle.

Sidney,

I agree, it may have something to do with what quality requires from all of us.

Quality requires personal commitment and accountability for determining the requirements, making a promise and then keeping that promise time and again.

Leaders requiring and resourcing a unique management system that enables their organization to do a better job of making and keeping competitive promises is a start.

Understanding the subleties of quality can come later.

John

 

[JaneB]

If we start equating quality with business excellence, rather than inspection, bureaucracy and paper work, we would be on the right track.

There is a deep, cultural, corporate misunderstanding of what quality management really is. Until we fix that, we will have an uphill battle.

Very, very true. Could not agree more.

And, alas, there is still, still, still! far too much equating of it with inspection, bureaucracy and paperwork.

 

[Jen Kirley]

In the latest prep for Management Review I was (finally) asked to help prepare the slides to present audit results. On this groundbreaking day we were going to summarize what we (I) had been seeing into an overall "What do all these things point to?"

I pointed to inadequate resources, which rather stung a couple of the managers there. Since I was (finally) invited to attend this review, I was able to answer his question by pointing out that section 6 of the (TS/ISO) standard deals with various resources, including infrastructure, software, IT systems and personnel. "The right tool for the job, the right person for the job."

Did he remember saying "That's not my job" (or something like it) when asked to help resolve the problem of lines down when we ran out of chemicals because we failed to develop and implement a method for forecasting materials needs when switching from commodity to contract manufacturing? Maybe, maybe not. We have a ways to go too, but I was at least able to tell them something beyond # of audits, # of NCs, in which element.

We so need a balanced scorecard to help show how it's all working together (or not), and I hear we used to have one but it was abandoned.

 

[BridgeGap]

The idea of organic integration comes to mind. People won't notice it if it becomes a natural way of life. "We are doing the following cause it is a better way of doing things..." A culture takes shape. No different than a change to Lean or deploying a socio-technical problem solving or process improvement program. It's not this program the company is doing, it's doing the same things only better.

 

[Jen Kirley]

The idea of organic integration comes to mind. People won't notice it if it becomes a natural way of life. "We are doing the following cause it is a better way of doing things..." A culture takes shape. No different than a change to Lean or deploying a socio-technical problem solving or process improvement program. It's not this program the company is doing, it's doing the same things only better.

That's what a QMS is supposed to be like. It's not supposed to be a bureaucratic wad of encyclopedic-looking procedures or an onerous set of rules.

 

[BridgeGap]

That's what a QMS is supposed to be like. It's not supposed to be a bureaucratic wad of encyclopedic-looking procedures or an onerous set of rules.

Tragically, for so many that is exactly what it becomes. It all starts with leadership and how quality management is viewed. Unfortunately, I think the term QMS, and more specifically the "System" part, has some kind of hypnotic effect, altering good leadership sense. Or maybe I give too much credit. The directive is given, results are expected and the template is overlayed, forcing all kinds of change which becomes a chore in itself to manage. The resulting change that should have been profound, meaningful and lasting is, by nature of how it was forced into shape, superficial, a burden and short-lived... Oh I guess I could go on and on. Couldn't we all?

 

[Jen Kirley]

Tragically, for so many that is exactly what it becomes. It all starts with leadership and how quality management is viewed. Unfortunately, I think the term QMS, and more specifically the "System" part, has some kind of hypnotic effect, altering good leadership sense. Or maybe I give too much credit. The directive is given, results are expected and the template is overlayed, forcing all kinds of change which becomes a chore in itself to manage. The resulting change that should have been profound, meaningful and lasting is, by nature of how it was forced into shape, superficial, a burden and short-lived... Oh I guess I could go on and on. Couldn't we all?

I wear a pendant watch and you would not believe (then again, maybe you would) how many times I wanted to hold my own hypnotherapy session, swinging the little thing back and forth and intoning "You will dooooo the right thiiiiiinnngg"

Seriously, the biggest problem I've seen with implementation is having a dozen or more managers slogging through their processes using their individually created Excel as a table to hold their data. The data must be searched over and over, to identify things like "Has the FMEA update for process change #123 been done?" As a result of poorly designed and haphazardly used tools a new process is brought on line but several pieces of equipment never got their PMs set up; lines go down because materials forecasting is done based on how much was used last month versus how much will be needed next month; required actions for process changes don't get done.

And no one knows or can connect the dots because these things don't get reported to the quality manager except for when found in audits. You wouldn't believe how many times I asked different managers what tools we used to make sure everything in projects gets done (I had seen what they did use, those various spreadsheets), and they did look at me as though they were hypnotized. I kept saying "We really should have a standardized set of tools that make it easy to identify status of deliverables" and they just looked at me. Zombies?

It would help if the managers could learn to recognize the lost value due to consequences of these types of things. I presented my Global Performance Audit plan to the guy in charge of North America auditing but he didn't understand it and he won't be implementing it.

Instead, when a consequence occurs it's natural to deal with symptoms and deal with the emergency. In fact, being a problem solver is much more celebrated in management circles than a problem preventer. As long as this attitude prevails we in QA will have plenty to do.

 

[Kwesifaiola]

Hello
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Thanks
Regards
Kwesifaiola

 

[Raffy]

Hi,
IMHO, Many ISO9001 Implementation Program fails because of failure to receive commitment from management, i.e. commitment to support the system such as closure of Corrective Action Report (CAR) On Time, Several Open Action Items, Recurring CAR, Unreturned CAR and many more.
Best regards,
Raffy