How Can Our Expertise Help You?

How to Implement ISO 9001:2000 and NOT Go Broke!

“Read about OSHA and the documentation your company needs to show complaince with the applicable CFR 1910 standards.”

Too many companies enter an ISO 9001:2000 program with the wrong objective. Let's impress our customers, leapfrog the competition and rush to registration. With this approach, the development of a quality assurance system becomes a cost burden. Seldom do companies adopt ISO 9001:2000 as a method for reducing quality costs.

Small and emerging companies can not afford the reported massive costs associated with implementing an ISO system. A small to medium sized company on average can spend between $100,000 and $150,000 in direct labor to document and implement the system. A three-year agreement with an ISO registrar will cost between $12,000 and $45,000. Can you afford to spend $200,00 to impress your customers, or would your customers be more impressed with 100% on-time delivery, 0 product defects and a responsive customer service department!! The trick is to utilize the discipline of an ISO system to not only satisfy your customers but to improve your quality performance.

Start Your Implementation With A Quality Cost Focus

In order to assess your quality improvement opportunity, your organization should start the process by defining it's cost of quality, typically, U. S. organizations spend between 15-22% of their sales dollars on internal rejects, yield loss, rework, warrantee claims, credits, product repairs and inspection. Poor product quality will also impact productivity and customer retention. Prevention dollars invested in standardizing a healthy process coupled with quality system training will reduce these internal and external failure costs. Utilize a "Quality at the Source" concept to reduce your inspection costs. Provide each operator with the technical know how, the equipment and product specifications needed to conduct on-line inspections. Qualify your vendors through verification of final inspection and reduce your costs of receiving inspection. An ISO 9001:2000 or any quality assurance system should be undertaken with an eye towards returning these costs of quality dollars back to the bottom line.

Don't Get Caught Up In The Paper Chase

One of the biggest costs and non-value-added activities associated with any system is the creation and ongoing maintenance of paperwork. A quality policy/procedure manual cannot be avoided. The trick is to develop the second and third tier documents around your existing system. Utilize existing production documents, (Travelers and Shop Orders, Stock Transfer Slips, and Material Pick Lists) to document inspection results or to indicate test status and conformance, or eliminate paperwork by designating and labeling designated staging areas for conforming product only. When possible, enter and store real time shop floor data on a computer. We are often asked, "must we develop a work instruction for every process?" No, companies with as few as 12 work instructions have achieved registration. Worker skill and qualifications, the complexity of the job and the availability of alternative documents such as drawings, bills of materials, check sheets should govern your decision. If you do develop work instructions, flow charts, or check off sheets, don't let them sit on a shelf and collect dust, use them to train and qualify your work force.

Don't Document Non-Value Added Processes

Utilize the documentation process as an opportunity to eliminate non-value-added activities. Adopt a team approach to document and analyze interdepartmental processes and weed out obvious bottlenecks, redundancies and unnecessary reviews and reports. The savings in cycle time and improvements in efficiency will more than offset the cost of documentation. Unless you run at 100% of capacity, utilize slow periods to allow employees who operate in a process to document work instructions.

Bridge Iso With Continuous Improvement

Develop a company quality policy with a focus on customer satisfaction, employee in quality cost reduction and continuous improvement. Educate the workforce on their responsibilities towards quality. You will get the biggest bang for your quality dollar if everyone controls their process and stops poor quality at the source. After all, you cannot inspect quality back into your products. ISO 9001:2000 requires you to implement a corrective/preventive action system. Educate your workforce on the use of problem solving tools to include: cause and affect analysis, process mapping, process capability studies and basic data analysis. Assign teams with the responsibility of working on high cost quality problems. Make sure you recognize and reinforce employee contributions towards process improvements.

Focus

Don't make the common mistake of putting the cart before the horse. Your major objective in implementing and ISO 9001:2000 quality system should not be registration. Your major thrust should be to improve quality. To improve on time delivery, reduce cycle time, reduce quality costs, strengthen product reliability, and to improve customer satisfaction. If your quality assurance system is effective in accomplishing these business objectives, it will surely be a system that is worthy of registration. If properly implemented, ISO 9001:2000 can become an effective long-term total quality management tool.

Bookmark & Share

Contact Information

Address