Archive for May, 2007

Do you need a formal purchase order to satisfy ISO9001:2000?

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

A lot of people think they need a formal purchase order from their customers in order to satisfy the requirements of ISO9001:2000 section 7.2.2.

I do believe its a really good idea to have such a purchase order, but if you’ve had a long lasting relationship with your customers, and have done business for years verbally or by e-mail, there are ways to continue such business while still satisfying the requirements if ISO9001:2000.

Please realize that this, like most every part of ISO9001:2000, is subject to interpretation by your auditor. Most (but not all) auditors I’ve met are reasonable people, and chances are you’ll be able to make your system work to the satisfaction of your auditor, as long as you’ve made a good effort to satisfy ISO’s requirements.

For example, if you’ve always done business with a particular customer verbally, and your customer does not wish to start sending you formal PO’s, I have a couple of recommendations for you. First of all, your customer might be OK with sending you an e-mail PO. As long as the e-mail is identifiable as to who sends it, and contains the pertinent information such as part number, condition, quantity, price, etc, this should suffice. Be sure to write in your quality procedures that e-mail customer purchase orders are acceptable as long as they include the specific information you need.

Let’s say your customer orders only one thing from you, but orders regularly and includes only quantity and price, for example. To work around this, you might draw up a letter that your customer acknowledges with a signature. The letter, a one-time document, could spell out the customer’s requirements for quality, delivery, condition, description, etc. Having such a letter would go a long way toward satisfying an ISO audit when it comes time to look at 7.2.2.

If the customer only wishes to purchase verbally (yes, there are still a few of these people around) you could have your salespeople fill out a sales order form, with a checklist format. The form would include all the pertinent information, and maybe your procedure could state that the salesperson complete the form, read it back to the customer for their confirmation, check all the requirements on the form and sign it. Maybe you could even fax a copy to your customer for good measure.

There are usually ways to make any legitimate and reasonable style of business work with ISO9001:2000. If in doubt, ask your consultant or registrar, they’re usually very helpful in matters where you may be in doubt.

Posted in From the Trenches, General quality system, ISO9001:2000 blog | No Comments »

He Just Wouldn’t Shut Up!!!

Monday, May 21st, 2007

Many years ago we went thru an ISO registration audit with an auditor I’ll call Mike (although his real name was Fred Thomasikalson, Minneapolis, MN, 616-555-1212) (just kidding!). Mike was an older guy, not too far off from retirement. It turns out that Mike LOVED talking about fishing, hunting, his cabin in the mountains, his grandchildren, his retirement….and on and on and on….. He really wasn’t all that interested in conducting an ISO registration audit, he just wanted to talk about his life. He wasn’t a bad guy, but was fairly useless as an auditor. Yes, we passed our audit, mostly because I think we listened to him. So I guess we got what we wanted, but I did feel somewhat cheated out of what could have been a good learning experience. I remember this auditor did about 1 hour’s worth of work during an 8 hour day. But we passed the audit, got our certification, and all was well.

Now, I wonder if he’s sitting in his boat talking about ‘the good old days as an auditor’, while his grandchildren are waiting to go fishing.

Posted in From the Trenches | No Comments »

Would you let a customer observe an internal audit? ISO9001:2000

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

A few years ago I consulted with a small aircraft parts company that did big business with a major aerospace manufacturer. The huge customer required that their suppliers be ISO approved, and eventually required AS9100 certification.

The really strange thing I learned was that the huge customer asked if they could observe internal audits conducted by my client company. This seemed like a really horrible idea to me, for several reasons.

I can, in a way, understand why the customer asked this. I suspect there may have been trust issues, that is, the customer might have had a hard time believing my client company actually conformed to the ISO9001:2000 quality standard. The client company owner had previously been caught being less than truthful with the customer. There were times I was amazed the customer continued to purchase from the client company, but that’s another story.

Internal audits are intended to help you catch and correct problems at an early stage, before those problems reach your customer. Why would anyone allow a customer to observe their internal audit? Would you be 100 percent truthful and honest in your audit if you had an important customer watching the process??? Heck no! I wouldn’t want to risk making my company look bad in front of the customer.

Providing that customer with a summary might be OK, tho really that’s even a lot to ask. But to have the customer there with you, looking over your shoulder during the audit? I say you’ve got to be kidding to ask this.

If I ever run across this in the future, and the client company owner wants to go along with the customer request, I’d have no choice but to conduct TWO internal audits. The first one would be in private, and it would be the actual audit. The second one would be strictly for show purposes.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Incorporating your Employee Manual into your Quality Manual?

Saturday, May 12th, 2007

Is it necessary to incorporate your employee manual into your ISO9001:2000 quality manual? Would you want to do this? What are the pros and cons?

First of all, it is not a requirement of the ISO9001:2000 quality standard. Other than determining competency of employees, ISO9001 does not delve deeply into personnel issues.

I’ve heard a few (very few) people claim that the employee handbook should be a controlled document, and should be included in their quality system. And I suppose this point of view has some merit. You do want to make sure that only authorized personnel are able to make changes in your employee manual, to be sure. And you want to ensure that all your people have access to the latest version of your employee manual. In this regard, controlling this document as you would control quality documents makes sense.

If your company uses the employee manual as part of training related to your quality system (I hope you’re not really doing this) then yes, your employee manual should be included as a controlled document in your quality system. Hopefully you’re not doing this, and you’re keeping your training documentation separate from your employee manual.

Also, if you’re responsible for quality at your organization, you’ve got plenty of time on your hands, and you want to enlarge your personal little kingdom within the company to enhance your job security, you probably will want to incorporate your company’s employee manual into your quality documents. After all, the more complicated you can make things, the better for you.

However, if you are like most companies I know of, with never enough time to run the freakin’ business let alone deal with excessive documentation, then I believe you should not incorporate your employee manual into your quality manual. There’s no requirement for doing this, and very few practical reasons for doing it.

Posted in General quality system, ISO9001:2000 blog | No Comments »

Quality Manual Motivation

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

I’ve helped implement ISO9001:2000 in several companies, and the difference in company philosophies is amazing.

One one end of the spectrum, there was the small manufacturer who had heard of ISO9001:2000 and wanted to realize some of the organizational benefits. No other company in this particular industy had ISO certification, and there were no customers who required it. In fact, this company decided not to pursue formal registration! If they ever got an ISO certificate and tried to show it to their customers, the customers would have no idea what it was!! Actually, working with this company was a true pleasure, because they WANTED to implement the quality standard for its benefits in productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction. They did this purely for their own benefit, which was really admirable. This sort of company is rare, but great to work for.

Then there was the small distributor who NEEDED to have ISO9001:2000 registration and certification because their largest customer demanded it. This small company really had no interest in quality, and no desire to truly implement the procedures and policies. All they wanted was to have a pretty certificate on the wall that they could show their customers. As soon as the auditors left, the company soon went back to their old ways, completely ignoring their procedures. Heaven help them on their next audit.

Posted in From the Trenches | No Comments »

Incoming Inspection Reduces Production Delays

Monday, May 7th, 2007

It’s really interesting to me (well, maybe I’m weird!) how improvements in procedures in one area of a company can have such a profound impact on another area, or on the entire organization.

Take company A, who implemented an effective incoming inspection procedure as part of their ISO9001:2000 quality system. Prior to implementing the quality standard, they did pretty much what a lot of companies do…..they have a guy doing receiving who’s been there a long time and “knows” everything about the job. They’ve been dealing with the same vendors for years, and they just accept the fact that a certain number of defective products will be received.

Of course, these defective products were often not discovered until something didn’t fit in production. The problems are usually too small to detect without using a micrometer or calipers. But when their vendor’s defective product was discovered, now the whole production line has to be stopped, and there are no good parts with which to make finished product.

After implementing ISO, an effective incoming inspection program was implemented, with a sample of 5 units inspected out of each 100 received. It takes one person an extra 4 to 5 minutes to receive each batch of parts from the vendor, once per day. But overall the company has saved about 2 hours per week, for their production crew of 4, for a total time savings of 8 man hours per week saved. Not to mention shipments are made quicker, and customers are happier.

There was a bit of resistance by the receiving guy at first, no one likes to be told to change his ways, but the company ended up saving time, money, and increasing their sales.

Posted in QMS Benefits | 5 Comments »