posted 09 December 1999 05:29 AM               

From: [email protected]

I have several questions which continue to concern me and from another list I get messages from some other people as well. If anyone can truthfully answer the following I am sure many on this list will be very appreciative.

Why is it: that on one side we keep hearing that the new standard is an improvement in understanding the requirements and you will not have to do much to change your existing system if you have a good one. Then we read Scalies response about doing ISO now or after the change in which he indicates it will be so much harder than the present and will cost so much time and money if you wait until the 2000 version.

Not just Charlie Scalies but others indicate the work in one breath and the beauty of it in another.

Dennis, you are on the TAG committee, does the committee see this as an easy implementation and change over for people? Do they expect people to have to work hard to get there? Do they think it is easier and if so does that mean compliance should be done relatively quickly after release?

I hear oppossite side consistently coming through about it is so easy and so hard which is it? Is it easy or hard? Does anyone know? Is the intent to make it easier as was once indicated?

Along the same lines if ISO 9000 is SOOO GOOOD why did we see QS 9000 and AS 9000 and DS 9000 and now we are seeing TE 9000, and TL 9000. If the new changes are to make it easier we should be able to get rid of all of these other numbered standards.

I have been told and have seen people indicate that the TL and other new ones are because certain industries need more defined specifics in one area or another. And yet when you go QS as an example even the big three have added their own requirements on top of the standard.

Do we simply have people although maybe good meaning who are seeing that proliferation of standards is good? What does it all cost all of us and what does it provide in quality.

I was at a client a few weeks back that says that companies who get all the required data for QS don't do anything with it or about it if it isn't correct. Several of my client's customers don't know the charts they give are not even statistically sound even though a review by someone with a basic SPC knowledge would question the information. They were trying but had no knowledge with no one trained on statistics. The customer told them to fill out some forms and charts and give them to them and they did. They have been doing it for several years and they have made absolutely no sense. But they did what the customer asked which added to the costs and to what result? No one did anything with them. How does this make any sense?

So you Lucents and AT&T's with your new standards why ask for something you don't even care is correct? The same with the automotive: Why ask for FMEA if you don't care if they don't make sense relative to the processes being done? Does this busy work make you feel good?