Do you have a quality system? If so, how seriously does your company’s management take your quality system?
Many companies merely pay lip service to having a quality system. Management may not believe that a quality system can have a positive effect. They may believe that the time that a quality procedure takes is too much, that it takes employees away from actual productive work. Maybe senior company management believes that a quality system can’t possibly be effective since they don’t trust their employees to do a good job. If such an adversarial climate exists at your company, you will have a hard time getting a quality system effectively implemented.
To all senior management who are contemplating the implementation of an ISO9001:2000 quality system, or any other quality system, I have some advice. Please trust your people and trust your quality system. If you honestly don’t trust your employees, find some that you can trust and get rid of the bad apples. Give your quality system time to work. Measure customer satisfaction and other quality performance parameters at the beginning of your quality system implementation. Give it a year of honest, good faith effort. Measure those same parameters at the end of a year. If you don’t see a significant improvement in your company’s operations and quality, then I will genuinely be surprised.