(ISO) Quality Manual Chat

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.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 at 3:19 pm and is filed under From the Trenches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.