posted 12 October 2000 05:57 PM            

I am in the process of developing an ISO project plan so that we can get started asap. My project plan tentatively looks like this:
- establish quality policy/objectives/scope with senior mgmt
- allocate resources
- inform/educate employees re: ISO process
- distribute basic ISO requirements to each functional area and have them develop working procedures which comply
- identify registrar
- conduct gap analysis / corrective action
- employee training
- implement quality system
- conduct audit / corrective action
- obtain registration in Fall/Winter 2001

Questions:

- does anyone have any feedback re: this project plan? does is look reasonable? are there any obvious holes in it?
- does anyone have a sample ISO project plan suitable for a start-up company such as ours that they would be willing to share?
- when is the appropriate time to write the quality manual? is there any value in attempting a draft up front (ie once qualiy policies/objectives have been established) or should I wait until we are a little further into production?
- all of the ISO 9001:2000 documents I have seen so far begin at section 4? are there also sections 1, 2 and 3? what are they about?
- does ISO specifiy a particular format for the quality manual, or can we do what ever works for us?

So many questions... any help/advice you can offer would be appreciated.

posted 12 October 2000 10:34 PM               

Your questions suggest you'd better buy a copy of the standard.

There is no fixed format or (dare I say it at this forum) interpretation.

posted 23 October 2000 03:23 PM               

Next, consider reading ISO 9004-1 (available from ASQ), specifically section 6 - "Financial Considerations of Quality Systems." Typically, from my experience, companies treat obtaining registration as a "project" not as an operational business model. Unfourtunately, companies that do so rarely experience quality improvement as much as they could (again, my opinion based on experience).

Tour some registered companies and learn first hand from other folk's experience. A good question to ask "management reps" is what would you do differently and why as well as what works well? People who have been in your position usually have some interesting stories to tell as well as valuable experience to share.

Have management establish the quality policy early. Apply metrics (performance measurements) to the quality policy. Management should use these metrics as leading operational indicators. This should be what drives your company's quality program.

Lastly, keep your system simple, easy to maintain and comply with, and defined in a way that makes sense for what your organization does. Best of luck....Jim