Would you spend your own $$$ for ISO 9001 registration

[GStough]

As long as the auditor reported something as an OFI (opportunity for improvement), this is not a conflict of interest nor ethical breach.

But we don't know if it was reported as an OFI or as a nonconformance.

 

[DMorin]

It was reported as an OFI. The savings in this instance was a result of auditing a warehouse that was previously never audited by prior auditors. I don't want to go into to much detail about the audit, but the savings was due to how the company ships product.

 

[billmeye]

For our company it is truely an investment in marketing, not quality. If customers were not requiring registration, the powers that be would not pay for it and I see their point. If I were the owner and had poor quality and no real system of management or control I would probably hire a consultant or read about what successful companies (Toyota) are doing and follow along as best as I could. BUT, only if I could reap a true payback such as reduced internal costs or increased business would I pay to be certified or registered with anything. One thing though, I am constantly reading about how LEAN is saving and saving and saving companies money and improving their bottom lines while helping to grow the business. I have NEVER read anything about how ISO has saved a company.

In my company of 30 people we have 29 who view ISO as a burden and 1 person tagged with keeping it going. We really don't get it here. The previous owner liked to say you could be ISO certified and still build an ancor that won't sink.

Also, many of our customers just use ISO as a check off on their supplier requirements but never take any time to come and see if we are actually doing what we say. Before ISO, we had dozens of audits from our customers, now we have NONE! ISO either is so good there is no need for verification, or, ISO is making business lazy and impersonal. I think it is making business very impersonal as my only contact with our customers Quality departments is when they request a copy of our latest cert or only to correct issues and problems. We used to see each other annually and there would be pats on the back for a good job when they came to do their own audits and found everything in good order. Oh well.

 

[Coury Ferguson]

For our company it is truely an investment in marketing, not quality. If customers were not requiring registration, the powers that be would not pay for it and I see their point. If I were the owner and had poor quality and no real system of management or control I would probably hire a consultant or read about what successful companies (Toyota) are doing and follow along as best as I could. BUT, only if I could reap a true payback such as reduced internal costs or increased business would I pay to be certified or registered with anything. One thing though, I am constantly reading about how LEAN is saving and saving and saving companies money and improving their bottom lines while helping to grow the business. I have NEVER read anything about how ISO has saved a company.

In my company of 30 people we have 29 who view ISO as a burden and 1 person tagged with keeping it going. We really don't get it here. The previous owner liked to say you could be ISO certified and still build an ancor that won't sink.

Also, many of our customers just use ISO as a check off on their supplier requirements but never take any time to come and see if we are actually doing what we say. Before ISO, we had dozens of audits from our customers, now we have NONE! ISO either is so good there is no need for verification, or, ISO is making business lazy and impersonal. I think it is making business very impersonal as my only contact with our customers Quality departments is when they request a copy of our latest cert or only to correct issues and problems. We used to see each other annually and there would be pats on the back for a good job when they came to do their own audits and found everything in good order. Oh well.

Interesting point of view, billmeye.

I guess all that I could say is that if a business utilizes ISO9001:200x to it's full potential it can provide a ROI. Think about continually improving your processes, which in turns create efficiency. Thereby creating costs savings (bottom line). If your processes are efficient, don't you think that there would be a ROI?

 

[billmeye]

Your right if the ISO template is what gets and keeps your processes efficient. What if you only made the initial investment but did not subscribe to follow up maintenance audits and independently maintained your system? Is that impossible? Does it always take external eyes to provide the proper critique?

Anyway, we used to get that follow up from our customers and at least that provided contact and interaction which is something I miss in this increasingly distant business world we live in.

 

[Wes Bucey]

<SNIP>
I have NEVER read anything about how ISO has saved a company.

In my company of 30 people we have 29 who view ISO as a burden and 1 person tagged with keeping it going. We really don't get it here. The previous owner liked to say you could be ISO certified and still build an ancor that won't sink.

Also, many of our customers just use ISO as a check off on their supplier requirements but never take any time to come and see if we are actually doing what we say. Before ISO, we had dozens of audits from our customers, now we have NONE! ISO either is so good there is no need for verification, or, ISO is making business lazy and impersonal. I think it is making business very impersonal as my only contact with our customers Quality departments is when they request a copy of our latest cert or only to correct issues and problems. We used to see each other annually and there would be pats on the back for a good job when they came to do their own audits and found everything in good order. Oh well.

Thanks for your views. I LOVE the "anchor" line. I will be using it frequently unless a miracle occurs and ISO registrants and their registrars make a big change from the status quo.

Your comment about [possibly] lazy customers substituting a supplier's ISO certificate of registration for a real analysis and evaluation of a supplier is really a function of ignorance on many levels of what a certificate really stands for. I have met many folks over the years who were convinced registrars were anointing certificate holders as the "best of the best" - a misconception aided and abetted by the registrars in misleading marketing pitches for their services when they implied certificate holders deployed "world class quality based on an International Standard".

You rightly bemoan the loss of customer contact and interaction. I empathize with your frustration.

The question remains:
"What can we [quality professionals] do to convince our customers and bosses to change the status quo?"

1. What changes would be most beneficial in assuring a certificate holder ACTUALLY had a quality operation where customers and regulators could feel confident the certificate holders were, indeed, the best of the best?
   
2. Would we have some provision which brought the concepts of partnership and interaction between customer and supplier into the relationship?

 

[billmeye]

Boy that would be great if somehow in the ISO requirements was a requirement to visit your vendors (or at least the one's that exceed a certain threshold of business interaction, whatever criteria that would be) within the 3 year cert period. That would make relationships a little more personal and give some meaning behind the registrations.

 

[Coury Ferguson]

Your right if the ISO template is what gets and keeps your processes efficient. What if you only made the initial investment but did not subscribe to follow up maintenance audits and independently maintained your system? Is that impossible? Does it always take external eyes to provide the proper critique?

Anyway, we used to get that follow up from our customers and at least that provided contact and interaction which is something I miss in this increasingly distant business world we live in.

If you don't maintain the level of Registration (the standard), it will be pulled, therefore, causing the business not to be registered. Which could cause the loss of Business revenue (affect the Bottom line). Without the Customer you have no Business. So the choice belongs to the organization.

Well, for the external eyes thing...I feel that someone, outside of the organization, will see the weakness and strengths that some companies wouldn't or don't want to see with their own eyes.

 

[bobdoering]

Here's the thing...for some reason ,if a person inside a company wanted to unilaterally implement a comprehensive quality system, they would be tarred and feathered. But, if someone outside the company (consultant, customer , auditor - take your pick) tells management to jump, they ask how high. Pathetic, but true.

If I was an owner, I would hope I could facilitate an implementation without outside overhead auditing costs (unless I needed it as a marketing tool). But, as a quality professional, I will only work at companies that are required to be certified. Fewer petty battles that way - focus more on 'just doing it'.

 

[jcbodie]

DMorin in his 10/14 posts and Coury F in his 12/11 post, have well-taken points.

This posting has been beaten to death and the same people in favor of ISO support it; those who are not, denigrate it. Ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

As far as billmeye, etal., that is certainly one way to look at things. I certainly would agree that some companies do ISO for less than stellar reasons. That is their choice, really. They don't understand what they may be missing. But, one of the ways to calculate any ROI, etc., was actually part of billmeye's original message. Calculating the time saved in not putting on the "dog and pony shows" (i.e. customer visits), including how much prep time is taken away from actually running the business, is one measurement, isn't it?? The fact that your customers presumably allow your 3rd party registrar to do the auditing, saves them money, too. It wouldn't make alot of sense, to me, to have them come in and audit, if your Registrar is already doing that.

The quality area (including ISO) has always been a tough one to fairly and completely quantify savings in...afterall, if you set up a preventive action program to insure product is not recalled, how would you calculate that which has never happened and how much the savings would be?? This is always the argument when management talks about the cost of prevention (which ISO could be considered part of), if nothing has happened, not realizing that the reason it may not have happened is precisely because you spent money on prevention. Also, I know many companies do not want to publish savings/financials (of any kind) as this gives the competition key information, that can hurt said company.

Without intimately knowing your company, I do think part of the reason your ISO process may not be delivering in your eyes, is because of your comment that 29 see it as a burden (pity the poor soul who's charged with making it happen). In particular, if you all don't "get it" as you say, then at least part of the blame has to be laid at the feet of your management.....which has absolutely nothing to do with the ISO Standard. By the way, your previous owners' "anchor" story is entirely correct. However, in a situation like that, you won't be in business very long anyway, ISO registration or no ISO registration, so it's really a poor argument against ISO.

Yes, some companies do see it as a marketing tool and yes, some companies are doing this only because a key customer has made it a requirement to do business with them. However, in the last 7 yrs of 3rd party auditing, I have seen quite a different trend: more smaller/medium-sized companies seeing value in the ISO Standard adding infrastructure and organization to their (typically) home-grown culture and less "I have to do this to get the orders" attitude. From what I can tell, many of the companies that "had" to do this at one point, have not maintained registration, once they have a real choice. But there are plenty left, who choose to continue. I say that's a good thing. It leaves 3rd party auditors, like myself, the best possible customers to work with: motivated, interested in improvement and valuing what the ISO Standard's structure can help them to achieve. I'm very fortunate in having a great client base to work with, which exhibit these traits. It doesn't sound like your company fits this description.

My condolences to your 3rd party auditor.