The ISO 9001:2008 Standard Isn't a Suggestion

I've just completed an assignment that has brought the kind of insight into management behavior that has to be shared. And if you're reading this, you most probably have similar experience and will resonate with these thoughts. In today's business environment, the understanding of continual incremental improvement is an absolute. Somebody, somewhere is studying how to develop and deliver your product with more benefits. Its called competition by some, and free trade by concept, but it absolutely determines whether you give your equity away or are able to grow and continue to prosper.

The majority of companies doing the kind of work I focus on were started with massive passion and very little capitol. Over time, a way of doing what they do evolved that seemed to work for them, because at the end of the year there was some money left after paying the bills. There is a concept I'll introduce here called workmanship that is most often used when a certain level of consistency must be realized from an activity. It implies profound knowledge of the end result, and capturing events in advance that might cause the end result to be less than what is expected. It is easily recognized in trade work and appreciated as a personal discipline that is offered to exceed a customers expectations. For some reason it is not as easily recognized in business management, and the results display themselves as a percentage of non-conforming products, inability to meet scheduled delivery dates and eroding margins, among others.

So the contrast is plain to me only because I've had the benefit of working on both sides of this issue. I've worked with companies that are customer focused, and I've had the experience of working with companies that are competition focused. I've seen where the money is made and business relationships are established. And when I talk to company leaders, without exception, everyone agrees with this concept in principle. Because any road will seem like the right way to travel if you've been down it enough times.

Case in point: A customer has purchase order requirements for a quality system that demonstrates a ISO 9001:2008 level of consistency as evidenced by documented behavior. The supplier takes these requirements as demands, and constructs a paper kingdom to comply with the customers purchase order requirements. Sound familiar?

The cost of the added paper process is my focus. Since this company has been doing what they do for so long, and has been rewarded for doing it, it's really hard for them to understand how a manufacturing standard like ISO 9001:2008 can offer any meaningful suggestions for improvement. It's all about compliance, and the paper kingdom gets really expensive when margins are being challenged.

There is a big difference between discipline and a forced compliance, and this is where the work I do with organizations is designed to help them understand and develop a gradual discipline to get the cause and effect feed back they need to make really good decisions. There is no way a single standard such as ISO 9001:2008 can be expected to cover the uniqueness of all the organizations using it, so it has to be understood and applied with the each organizations end expectation in mind. There is a lot of trial and error potential in this type of an endeavor, so having a partner who has been down this road before can make a big difference as to whether the learning curve is flat or steep.

Business decisions made for improvement must show a positive financial return or they are not worth doing. We can help integrate the thought processes of ISO9001:2008 into your present business thinking so the positive returns are evident as cause and effect behavior. And if you are faced with creating the paper kingdom for compliance, give me a call and lets talk about it.

The ISO 9001:2008 standard isn't a suggestion...


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/