Is it an insult to say that it's documented

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsIs it an insult to say that its documented? Guest was LJ Nichols Related Podcast: Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsLindsay Jackson Nichols discussed the business benefits of ISOCertification and how it can be used in conjunction withcontinuous improvement. Lindsay is the CEO of MOCG, amanagement consulting firm specializing in implementing processimprovement and ISO based management systems. At MOCG, they help avoid ISO implementation problems and frustrations through their unique ISO Business System Evaluation and step by step ISO process improvement methodology. As a natural by-product of the system they put in place, you will get your ISO certification. They look for productivity improvement potential throughout the ISO process and use ISO as the frame work, rather than just meeting the minimum requirements of the ISO standards.MOCG has developed a Free ISO Advisory Report called “The 10Biggest Mistakes When Implementing an ISO Quality System andHow To Over Come ThemAll”. This ISO report willeducate you on what a qualitysystem is supposed to do foryour company, approaches toavoid and how to optimize yourresults. Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsJoe Dager: Welcome everyone. This is Joe Dager, the host ofthe Business901 podcast. With me today is Lindsay JacksonNichols the CEO of MOCG, a management consulting firmspecializing in implementing process improvement and ISO-basedmanagement systems. Lindsay has perfected an approach todocumenting organizations processes and tying them to theirbusiness metrics, making the ISO initiative a compelling valueproposition. Lindsay, you make ISO sound like a marketingopportunity. Is it?Lindsay Jackson Nichols: I think it is. I really do believe it is. Ido. Many companies will contact me and its pretty obvious fromwhen I ask them why, whats the motivation for doing it? Imgoing to get two very distinct responses: "We have to do itbecause our customers want us to" or "Our competitors are allregistered and so we cant be seen to be falling behind." Or theysay "We want to use it as an opportunity to improve what we do."Typically, its the latter that I am working with.Joe: I always look at ISO as more of a standard than a qualityinitiative. Can you kind of define the two and maybe explain thatto me?Lindsay: It is a standard. Sure enough, for anyone that isunfamiliar with ISO 9001 it kind of predates all the way back toits origin, the second World War, where the organizations wantedto make sure that the ammunitions and the planes andeverything else that they were procuring were going to meetstandards so that they could be depended upon to do whatever itwas that they were supposed to do, meeting specifications. Thesequality standards were born which set a standard playing field.Whether youre a small organization in Barcelona, Spain or yourea service company in Minneapolis, Minnesota there is a commonexpectation that you have set protocols and procedures in place. Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsAs a customer to either of those organizations this companycontrols the way they procure products and materials. They haveinspection. They can verify what it is that they do and what theirvendors are doing so that their finished product meets theircustomers expectations. So that is essentially the definition ofthe quality standard.Now whether its an opportunity for an improvement, thatswhere the kind of a bone of contention comes into it. There aremany organizations that say it really isnt. Its a standard thatultimately the finished product doesnt necessarily mean its abetter one than in an organization that isnt ISO registered.I suppose you could say there that its up to the organization tochallenge themselves. Are they looking to meet a minimumstandard, or are they looking to say "While we look internally atwhat we do, do we want to say "Where are our gaps? Where is itthat we could be doing better? Where is the interruption in theflow of data and information between departments and people?Where are there overlaps, where weve got multiple peoplethinking that they should be doing things and that needs to bemore clearly defined."Joe: When I think of continuous improvement I always think ofLean or the Six Sigma or maybe some other quality initiatives, Iguess which ISO would fall under. But youre saying that ISOshould be an active tool that is really the basis of your continuousimprovement?Lindsay: Yes, I think so. You bring up Lean as an example andthe Six Sigma. I think an organization that is thinking aboutimplementing either of those initiatives is motivated by the desireto raise the bar on itself, to look for opportunities to improveinternally. Theyre not necessarily saying "What do our customerswant? Why are we doing it?" I think this is where youve gotthese two schools of thinking. A company thats thinking about Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemsdoing ISO 9000, generally speaking, is being motivated externallybecause theyve got organizations that say "You know what? Wedont really have an appetite for change. We just want thatcertificate. We want that certificate so that we can show ourcustomers we are equally as good as our competitors."I think this is where the distinction is rather than saying "Forgetit; its not that customers arent important. But forget about whatthe external influences are what do we want to do internally asthe owner of an organization, as the leader of an organization?What is it that I want to impress upon my people for them to lookat what they do and look for opportunities to do it better, to crossthe functional lines and work together more completely?" Andagain, lots of process changes and not just departmental orproduct changes.Joe: Well, when I think of ISO, I mean its an internationalstandard. How does that reflect to me if I just do businessbasically domestically?Lindsay: I think again its just easy for an organization to say,you know, "Im a medical device manufacturer. I want to knowthat suppliers I choose have got the necessary controls in place.Do I want to invent something from scratch or do I want to saywhat is available to me?" Theres an ISO 9001 standard and thenit has a medical derivative, ISO13485, thats got some additionalrequirements that are specific to medical applications. I wouldrather choose that. Its there, its consistent, and again it meansthat nobody has to develop these company or industry specificrequirements.Joe: Who certifies me? Who says that Im ISO compliant?Lindsay: Every country has an accreditation body. Thatsessentially the organization that is responsible for keeping thisordinance, if you want to look at it that way. So you then have a Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemsgroup of what we call certification bodies. These are theregistration agencies, the inspectors if you want to think about itthat way that will go from organization to organization andindependently verify whether the company is actually meeting theISO requirements. The accreditation body makes sure that thoseregistration agencies have, again, the internal controls in place tomake sure that they are applying the requirements consistentlyand are reporting on the audits consistently. So again everybodyis essentially playing to the same set of rules.Joe: Can I go wrong putting ISO in? I mean, can it somehowhurt me as a company? Is there things I should watch out for,maybe Im not ready for it or something?Lindsay: Yes. Theres a short answer to that. Im a consultant,would you expect me to say anything differently? Of course Imgoing to say yes, you could go wrong. Its going to cost youmillions of dollars. And shame on you. You should have beenthinking more deeply about it.But if we forget that, forget that Im a consultant and just look atthe fact that Ive been working with companies on the ISO-basedmanagement systems for 20 plus years, what I see over and overagain is an organization that doesnt know what it doesnt know.So its saying "OK, well we can do this in a few weeks. This iseasy. Lets just document what we do and get that registrationagency in and everything will be fine." In reality what were doingis establishing two sets of operating procedures: the way wealways operate, and the way we think the registration agencywants to see us operate.Its a huge burden for that organization to bear. Every person insales, in marketing, in purchasing, in production, productionplanning, human resources, inspection, shipping, all have tounderstand two sets of operating procedures. Thats typicallywhere I see companies go wrong. Instead of looking and saying, Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systems"What makes sense?" Because again, ISO is a standard based ongood business practice.Thats revised every seven to 10 years to say again "How can weimprove this thing?" So that it applies to any type of organization,whether theyre service, whether theyre manufacturing, whetherthey have five employees, whether they have 5,000 employees.How can we improve it?If an organization is serious about it, theyre looking and saying"Lets challenge it." If we need to change because we dontadequately verify the material that is coming through our docksto make sure before we add any value to it whatsoever it meetsour requirements, then why would they want to be in business?If youre going to go wrong, the fact is that you wont challenge itso that you know that anything that you are wanting to change,needing to change, needing to implement is adding value and isstrengthening your operating practices.So if its doing that the chances are its easier for you toinstitutionalize it, rather than having people say "It makes nosense. Im going to do this and then when the registrar comes inIm going to present that I am doing my activities in a completelydifferent way thats ISO compliant." Does that make sense?Joe: It sounds like its a continuous improvement process initself and with a very well-defined standard. I think most peopleconsider ISO, that its just a checklist?Lindsay: Exactly. Thats probably even supported by the factthat registration agency comes in with a checklist. "We want tosee that you do it this way. We want to see that you do it thatway. Can you show us evidence of how you controlnon-conforming products or materials? How you performcorrective action when that material has been returned by thecustomer or that product has been returned by the customer." Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsAnd yes, it feels very checklist-like. But when you boil it downyou actually are looking at all of these different processes. Inmany cases you want to document them because thats the mostconsistent way for people to understand how something shouldbe performed and most especially for new employees.So I dont know, is it some insult to say that its documented? Isthere some insult in some cases to say that there are checkliststo support how things should be performed? I dont think so.Joe: Thats one of the big resistances to Lean is the perceptionthat you are standardizing all the work and making robots out ofeveryone. But standard work is kind of what youre saying thatISO is all about. Its making work standard. I mean, being explicitin what it is. And thats not a bad thing because if there is adeviation from it, it would raise the flag, or in the Lean terms,someone would pull an Andon cord.Lindsay: Exactly. You find me one new employee joining anorganization that will ever complain that there is something indocumented form that tells them how they should be performingsomething. They cry out for it. But how many times do you hearpeople say "Oh yeah, its baptism by fire here." Nobody likes tobe in that situation. I mean Ive been through it myself; itsdisconcerting. People want to be productive; they want to get upand running fast. What you tend to hear from the more seasonedpeople is "Oh, but its so unique, what we do. Theres no way youcould possibly standardize it." Of course thats completenonsense. There are certain things, obviously, every order isdifferent. The flavor of what a customer wants versus the nextone, absolutely.But there are certain steps that are consistent throughout anorganization and between organizations regardless of what theydo. Thats what you are looking to standardize. And so yourehelping people further downstream in the organization, "See, this Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemsis what I should get before the sales people hand over thisinformation, this is what should be in place. In order for me nowto put this order into the system and translate it to production ormanufacturing or whoever it is thats going to then deliver on therequirements.Joe: Staying on this standard work thing a little bit, if Im a Leancompany and I have standard work documents... lets say thatIm going to be ISO-compliant. Should standard work documentsbe subject to surveillance or the audit of ISO?Lindsay: Well, if they wouldnt, wouldnt you then again betrying to run duplicate systems? How productive is that? Again,thats a huge drain, isnt it - having multiple standard workdocuments? Some that meet the ISO requirements some meetthe requirements of the Lean Initiative. Some meet therequirements of a customer. Some meet the requirements ofSarbanes-Oxley. It makes sense, as an organization looks at theway that these management systems. I always like to take ISOout of the equation and just say to the organization, "Weretalking about your operating practices that naturally are impactedby financial measures and metrics that are naturally impacted bystrategic objectives. Bring them in together. Do not make themdiscrete. Make sure that these things interrelate. It just makes iteasier and more realistic to manage rather than having thesemultiple, dueling or competing initiatives."Joe: Youre saying that it should be just part of the practice ofthe company? If they establish best practices, theyre more likelyISO compliant to begin with then?Lindsay: Ive never found an organization that did not meet therequirements in some shape or form. They may not meet them tothe degree and usually theyre the first ones to admit. "There arecertain parts of our business that we are a little more informal.Those are the parts of the business where we are more...its more Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemsthought out, its more documented, its more well understood andits more consistent." Usually, once youve done an evaluation ofthe organization, you can actually substantiate and say that. Inthese other areas you really are feeling some pain." People askand this missing thing is information that has beenmiscommunication, its been missing. Product therefore has beenproduced and delivered to the customer that doesnt meetrequirements. Which then costs time and energy and having itreturned. Evaluating it, what are we going to do to avoid it fromhappening again? Improving the credibility with the customer, allof those things, ultimately, we want to avoid happening in thefirst place.Joe: Can a Lean company work hand in hand with ISO?Lindsay: Absolutely. Ive seen it time and time again. The bigquestion is which would happen first? Maybe youve got anopinion on that.Joe: I dont know that I have an opinion of it. When I think of aLean Initiative and we go in, we try to break down the silos alittle bit. But first of all, what we try to do is create the valuestreams and improve a general process. But improving it, Onowould say, "No standard, no improvement." Youve got to have astandard to begin with.Lindsay: Exactly.Joe: So if youre sitting there looking at a standard and youdraw up that standard, youre going to find deficiencies withinyour organization right away. Then you start the improvementprocess. I guess, where Ive always looked at ISO before is thefact that, to me, it was a checklist. To me, it was something thatI needed to be compliant about. Was it a good checklist? Yes, itwas an excellent checklist. There were certain areas that I couldtake a look at ISO and look at how we did shipping, maybe. Or Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemslook at how we are handling complaints. These would be myimprovement initiatives, where I failed in the ISO standard. Iwould think that that would be a good way to be able to achieveISO is through using the tools of the Lean or the journey.Lindsay: Absolutely. Ive seen the two tools work phenomenallywell together. Again ISO is really... and this gets back to thequestion that you had asked about, "Can companies go wrong?" Ithink lots of companies go wrong, just by underestimating what isthe initiative because, essentially, its looking at every part of thebusiness. How can you make changes to every part of yourbusiness in a matter of weeks without it having a huge impact?You want to make sure youre doing it correctly. ISO is awonderful tool to say, "OK. Here is the framework. We are nowgoing to look... were going to follow our process through."From marketing through closing through sales to the contractbeing generated and the order being received, the material beingpurchased. Any design that might need to take place;manufacturing, shipping, delivery, invoicing. Then circling back toget feedback from the customer. Continual improvement,corrective action and then all of the support processes that takeplace.That is where Lean is phenomenal. Then come in and say, "Wevebeen evaluating ourselves against this framework, weve come upwith a number of areas where we are lacking, where we do needto standardize, but where there are opportunities forimprovement."That gives Lean the platform to go in and say, "OK. Lets look atshipping. Lets look at a specific part of our design process. Letslook at a specific part of our marketing process. Look to see howcan we make this more streamlined? How can we improve this?How can we add value here?" ISO makes it... again, offers thetools to then say, "OK. So now weve really changed this process. Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsWeve really improved it. What is the best way of communicatingthis to our people, so that they understand how its changed,what they need to do?"By looking cross-functionally, because obviously every processtypically involves multiple functions, we understand the hand-offsand the involvement from each group of people. The best way todo that is to document it. It kind of gets back to that fear thatmany organizations have that, "ISO is all about documenting."Its the nature of the business. Its the nature of the beast. Butwhy is that a bad thing? Why is it a bad thing to have, in flowchart form, or to have pictures and photographs, workinstructions, as they are necessary, how something should beperformed? To provide the clarity and the standardization and thecontinuity and the consistency that people want and need.Joe: Kind of sets the bar, doesnt it, of what you need to do?Lindsay: It really does set the bar. How many times... maybeyouve seen this too, as youve gone into organizations. You findsomebody who is in the sales department or theyre new in theshipping department or the engineering or R&D functions. Andwhat are they doing? Theyre essentially creating their own workinstructions. Theyre creating their own procedures, because itswhat they need to understand, as a new person, how theyperform something. So any organization that shies away from theneed to document, the need to have things in black and white, onpaper or electronically... but the fact is that they are there, forpeople to understand. I never understand that fear and its soprevalent.Joe: You also mentioned which kind of intrigued me of applyingISO to sales and marketing. How is that applied there?Lindsay: Again, it is the same thing which I always call the newstandard. When I say the new standard Im talking about the Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemsstandard, the revision of the year 2000. There was a revision,actually, in 2008. But you could have blinked and missed thechanges. When I say the new standard... The year 2000, thechanges, the revision was so notable. Because it was such a shiftin thinking and it was asking organizations to look at processes,instead of being departmentally focused, looking at the processfocus. What is that input that then says, "We need to go into thetransformation activity?" So at the end, we are then out-puttingor producing an unfinished product, a material, data, whatever itis to then pass on to the next process. That, again, triggers it totake place.One of the great things about the new standard was that it wasreally looking and teaching organizations to think about it in fourstages. That what do we plan to do? Then the execution. Wevenow executed on our plan. We want to check. So what kind ofverification activity has taken place?To make sure what we planned to do is indeed what we actuallyexecuted on. And then, when we find that there is a mismatch,what do we do to close the loop, to correct, analyze? So this isvery interesting, sorry for the long answer, when you think aboutsales and marketing. You can absolutely apply that same plan,do, check, act methodology. How many times are we saying,"You are our customer, we want to understand what yourrequirements are?" We then produce the statements of work thatconfirms it back to them.Maybe its an estimate, maybe its a proposal depending on thenature of the companys business. Than saying, "How well havewe understood this?" How many of these opportunities are weactually winning? How easy is it then for the group of people thatplan and produce whatever it is that we do, the product orservice, to take these requirements and accurately deliver? Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsThen go back to the customer at the end and say, "OK. Nowjudge us, based on our complete cycle. Based on what we saidwe would do in marketing, what we sold in the sales process andthen what we delivered to you in the manufacturing or thedelivery process? How well did we do? How well did we set theexpectations and how well did we deliver on them?"Again, if you go into many organizations, theres this rivalrybetween operations and sales. Sales is always selling somethingthat we know we cant deliver. And then sales says, "Were thevoice of the customer. Delivery never understands. Wed have nobusiness if it was up to them." That helps to start to close thegap. Again, its remarkable, some of those changes. Tell me youllfind for me one business owner or leader of an organization thatisnt concerned about sales, doesn’t want to grow business. Soits within their interest to tie all of this together.Joe: Youre saying that there should be a standard in your salesor marketing that you should be following. Sales and marketingmust be utilizing those improvement methods out there to beable to use. And ISO may be leading in that field.Lindsay: Absolutely. Is sales and marketing not cyclical just likeeverything else? Does it not have a trigger? Does it not have setactivities that need to take place, with a distinct deliverable? Theanswer is, absolutely. Its just like any other process. We want tohelp the people who are contributing, who are primary users ofthat process, or contributors to that process, to understand.These are the tools that are available to you. This is theexpectation of what you will be doing for this organization. This isthe expectation of what your deliverables will be. To set up everyprocess that leads from here successfully. You could look at it andsay, "Marketing is the first process. Sales is the second one."Then from there, youve got the order receiving and the all theway through manufacturing, shipping, delivery. Why wouldnt youwant to look at, essentially, the foundations of the organization? Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsAnd say, "How connected are we? Or how confident are we? Howstrong these are?" Before, we start to make changes to othersubsequent processes.Joe: I think thats very true but I think people in the sales andmarketing have stayed away from most quality initiatives. Ithink...Lindsay: They have, they have. You know what they say, theysay they love it; they want it as long as it doesnt affect them.You can see it time and time again. Why do they love it and whydo they want it? They love it and want it because its somethingelse they can sell to the customer, right. "Wow, look at this, wereISO. Wow, look at this, were Lean or Six Sigma, were this, werethat. I dont personally have to do anything. It doesnt affect mepersonally as a salesperson, but look what my organization does."So its always interesting when you say "Oh no, you too will beimpacted by this." Eventually they start to see "Yes, its great."When does anyone complain when they have more tools in theirtoolkit? Ever?Joe: No, I dont think so. I think the biggest complaint probablyis when and how to use the tools.Joe: It seems like is such a basic process and Ill say checklistdriven, which may be a bad interpretation of it. But every ISObook I ever opened up eventually got to a checklist.Lindsay: Well, you know, and I love to where this is leading tobecause its exactly right. How many organizations... they nowserve multiple industries. So they may serve a very informalentrepreneurial business. They may serve a very regulatedmedical or pharmaceutical industry. So what does that mean tothem? Does that mean that every, you know, lets take sales,since weve been talking about sales. Does that mean that thesales person has to look and say "Every opportunity has to be Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemsdocumented and we have to respond to it with the samecomplexity that we would do if it was a medical opportunity?"Absolutely not, the name of the game is building in that flexibility.Not every customer wants to pay for a Cadillac. But the customerthat does and values that, then obviously it presents a higherdegree of risk, financial risk, quality risk.So it makes sense that thats where the complexity of the processreally kicks in. We challenge companies all the time to say "OK,lets build it." As long as everybody understands the criteria thenthat gives them the flexibility to respond to the high risk, themedium risk and the low risk contracts, customers, opportunities.Joe: One of the things that happen in ISO thats alwaysconfusing to me is that there are so many designations behindISO, ISO 9000, ISO 2000, ISO this and that. And its confusing.Is it really all that confusing?Lindsay: I think they could have made it easier. I certainly dontthink that theyve made it as easy as they could have done. Imean what it boils down to is that back in the old version, 1997version, 1994, sorry, version, you had ISO 9001, ISO 9002, andISO 9003. Essentially ISO 9001 was for organizations thatdesigned as well as manufactured or produced their product orservice, whereas 9002 was for organizations that had no designresponsibility. ISO 9003 was for organizations that only hadinspection. So a lab would be a perfect example of that.The 2000 version came around and they decided do we reallyneed to make it this complicated? Lets just have one standardand then organizations can exclude the disciplines that they donthave. If theyre not design responsible, theyll be ISO 9001registered and they will just exclude that and say "Were notdesign responsible. So we dont design, we dont expect to see it.We dont even have a design group." Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsAgain, if you were just a lab, then you would exclude the productrealization process because youre not producing a product or aservice. So they tried to make it a little more straightforwardthere.I think where people still tend to get a little confused is that itsstill ISO 9000 and 9004 and 9001 and they are essentially justthe guidance documents for helping companies interpret them.But ISO 9001 is the only standard that an organization can getregistered to. And Im not talking about the industry specificstandards.Im talking about, you know, youve got things like ISO 13485,which is specifically for medical companies. So essentially it takesISO 9001 and has some modifications that are specific to whatthe medical community would like to see.Then AS 9100 is kind of the same thing but for aerospace butessentially what they are doing is theyre taking that onestandard, ISO 9001 is essentially the foundation for theseindustry specific requirements. Im sure Ive made that very clearnow, right?Joe: The other thing that you talked about and I thought wasreally unique in a question you sent me was a centralized ordecentralized system ownership. Can you explain the differenceto me there and touch upon that?Lindsay: The standard requires that an organization have anominated management representative. What that means is thatthere is someone in the organization who is responsibleessentially for coordinating this ISO 9000 initiative. And that theyare responsible for reporting on the quality management system,reporting back to management and they have managementsauthority. Then typically this is the person who would deal withthe third party with the registration audits and that type of thing. Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsBut what you see very often is that as an organization is thinkingabout implementing a formalized quality management system likeISO, they say "Who will do this for us? Who are we going to pick?How are we going to approach this?"So they will; nominate this individual, call them their ISO 9000management representative and then say "OK, this is your baby.You now need to make sure that you get us compliant so that wewill pass a registration audit." This person says "OK, what doesthat mean?" "Well, you know, we need to document what we doso youll need to do that. So you need to get with everybody andwrite all our procedures and our work instructions."This person says "Well how much time is this going to take? Youknow Im the quality manager" or I dont know, "Im the projectmanager," or whatever I might be. I might be engineeringmanager. Who knows what my function is? But how much timedo I have to do this? "Well how much time do you think it willtake?" "Well this sounds like a full time job.""OK, well maybe we can get you some help" or maybe we justexpect you to do it. But the fact is that now this person isdedicated to this initiative. They become kind of like a centralizedfunction. The downside of that is it lacks ownership. If you headup sales and then you have got someone who heads upengineering and you have somebody who heads upmanufacturing, shipping, R and D, purchasing. Youve nothing tolose.Somebody else is coming in and documenting the processes andis taking responsibility for this initiative. Why would you ever tellthis person when something has changed? You know, maybe notmaliciously, but you forget in the heat of battle. There are lotsgoing on. Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsYoure just not as diligent about telling this person "OK, wevemade a change here. Weve changed routines. Maybe we have anew system for generating purchase orders." Or maybe wevechanged our criteria for evaluating critical vendors and it neverfilters back to this person who sometimes it can seem is back intheir ivory tower trying to manage all of this program.What we tend to see is a more effective model is saying "OK,yeah, you have to have a management representative but thisperson is really only coordinating. So theyre the person who willpull data together to present to management at the time of amanagement review." When it comes to actually documentingprocesses, looking at processes to see how they could beoptimized, it is much better if that falls to the person who has thegreatest influence on that particular process, which tends to bedepartmental leaders.They are the ones who can then work with their peers to say "OK,we have a design process. Lets get a representative frompurchasing in here. Lets get a representative frommanufacturing. But as head of engineering this is my process andIm going to take responsibility for making sure it reflects the waywe want to do things. Im not going to push it off to thismanagement representative to write this on my behalf and neverfeel truly bought-in to it." Does that make sense?Joe: Yes, yes. Thats a tough thing for any quality department,of how you actually manage quality within the organization.Lindsay: You know, to me its not about passing or failingbecause again it is a system that has been successfullyimplemented. Getting actually registered or getting certified is aformality. I mean you would expect too. Why wouldnt you? Thefact is if youve done it properly youve been committed to it,everybody has been involved, youre truly living and breathing it,youre really dont need a third party to come in and tell you that. Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsYou know it yourselves. Have one individual where it rises or fallstotally on them just seems completely unrealistic versus saying"Hey, you know, theres a group of 15 or 20 people who havebeen integral in analyzing what we do, addressing it anddocumenting our activities and implementing theseimprovements.For some reason we were to fail it wouldnt be down to oneindividual. This is a group effort. We want these people to feelthis is how we influence our organization. This is how Icommunicate to other people and the people that are involved inmy process, how it should be performed and make sure that thebuy-in is there." And make sure as new people join theorganization that they understand the process, too.Joe: When we talk about implementing ISO, can I just godownload some manuals and go through my checklists andimplement it?Lindsay: You can, absolutely. If you want a quality council andyou want to suddenly think "OK, who would be on our qualitycouncil?" Basically have all of the terminology that has beentaken out of another organization put into these stock or standardprocedures and try and somehow manipulate them to reflect whatyou do, be my guest. Many organizations, I think, try to do that.Of course, the downside is no organization is the same as thenext and the way they... you know, who the customers are, theprocesses, the sophistication of the processes, the sophisticationof the infrastructure that the organization has. All of that isdifferent and it influences that.So by the time you try to manipulate something from anotherorganization, it probably would have been easier to have said"Lets start afresh with our own organization." And not try andtake a quality manual from ABC Manufacture in Arkansas. Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing SystemsJoe: You think its beneficial to have an ISO external consultantto assist in your organization to start? Or hire one, lets say.Lindsay: Well, I think its like any major initiative. The fact isthat do you as an organization, you have to ask yourself, do wehave the know-how internally and do we have the resourcesinternally? Do we have the discipline internally? Do we have thediscipline to prioritize for the next 12 months to get this thingdone?" Then this is where an organization says, "Or, do we wantsomeone to come in?" Whos done this over and over again wedont have that learning curve. We got someone who will come inand tell us, explicitly, "OK, this is where you are. This is whereyour opportunities are. These are the minimum requirements thatyou have to meet. This is some of your low hanging fruit that youcould pull into the program as you go along. This is how long itsgoing to take you."These are the people I think, that we think, need to be broughtinto the program. These are your departmental leads. These arethe other people that, during the course of an evaluation audit,make themselves apparent as being the movers and shakers. Thepeople who will be great in contributing and driving this process.Then it becomes a knowledge transfer, so at the end of theprocess...when I say the process I mean the end of the ISOinitiative...what is the end? I suppose its when the processeshave been documented, the improvements have been built-in tothis documented system and then they have been implementedand then verified through internal audits. That people are actuallyworking to them. Thats what Im talking about as the end.When the company has then sought that knowledge of saying,"Yes, were comfortable that we are now conforming with therequirements and we can take the next step to get ready,depending on what we want to do." But by that time, we knowthat the company is self-sufficient. Weve had this drip feed Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemschange management and knowledge transfer. With these internalorganization teams who have been involved in documenting andimplementing.Joe: Where is the future of ISO going? Is it alive and well? Itseems kind of old hat to me.Lindsay: Its amazing me and Ive been doing this for 20 years.If you had told me 15 years ago or maybe even 10 years ago,that companies will still call up and say, "Were thinking ofimplement ISO, can you come and talk to us about it?" I wouldhave said, "By 2011, everybody will have heard about it. Therewill be no on that will be asking that question." Yet, maybe notevery day, but multiple times a week, someone is making thatvery call, asking that very question. Why? Either the companydidnt exist 10 years ago. It didnt have the kind of customers orit wasnt producing the kind of products where customers wouldstart to talk to them about......Have more formal quality management systems, higherexpectations. More work they wanted to push in their direction.So they never needed to know about it. Yes, its alive and kicking.I can see it continue to be. I cant say it going away. Becausewhat would it be replaced by?You hear lots of rhetoric about its going to go away andsomething else is going to come on. But thats going to take sucha concerted effort, when you think about just, "Whos beeninvolved, how long its taken to get it to this point. How manyorganizations are registered to it?" Just the adoption, it would bean unbelievable undertaking to dismantle that and replace it withsomething else.Joe: So you believe that, in the future, its only going to reallygrow. I see very little in the marketplace about ISO. It seems likeits a thing that, once you grow up as a company, you do. Maybe Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemsmore manufactures than service. Which I think is a misnomer.Because I think its very prevalent in healthcare and veryprevalent in other service firms now. But I dont see it in themarketplace as much as what I see the other qualitymethodologies. Is it just an accepted fact that you become ISOafter a certain size?Lindsay: You said it. The larger organizations... I dont thinkthere are many large organizations that arent registered.Somehow, we were completely unaware of these standards. Itsjust come to our attention 20 plus years. Theres none of those.The Baxters of this world and the Fords and the GM and all therest have been there, done that. I think that fraternity is askingthemselves, "How do we get more out of it? Weve used that asthe baseline. Now how do we optimize?" This is, of course, whereI believe the Six Sigma comes into play for the smallerorganizations. They havent. So theyre now growing and theyrestarting to do business with these larger organizations. They needto get that baseline. ISO is offering them that opportunity. Asthey do grow and they become the mid and larger organizations,they are then in that same position. Saying, "Now, how do weoptimize it?" I think thats why you see a lot more of that inpublications because thats where the demand is.Even when you read the blogs of the VPs of quality of any of theFortune 1000, thats really the emphasis, how do we do better?How do we raise the bar? What methodologies are out there forus? Weve got a quality management system. Now how do we useit to bring some of these techniques and these techniquesoptimize it?Joe: So ISO is really a standard thats accepted within industry.Its just as much a part of industry now and what they do inbusiness as it is something that Im going to do a cultural changeor transformation to achieve. Were looking to improve it and we Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemsuse it as a baseline for best practices and things. But its notreally anything new to us. Its a part of the way we do business.Lindsay: Exactly. Unless thered be a significant change, like the94 to the 2000, that would cause a flurry of publicity and papersbeing presented. And drive all of this activity of, "OK. How do weapproach it? What are the good ways and the bad ways?" Thatneed for all of that information to be out there. The downside isthe most recent change was negligible. Thats not because theopportunities arent there. I think they are absolutely. I thinktheres probably quite a lot of fighting right now about what thenew revision should look like.How are we going to put more improvements in there? Should webe looking at a different model of assessment? So people dontknow when the auditors are coming in? And looking at thedifferent improvement models to try and put some kind of hybridtogether. But this vast machine that represents these technicalcommittees, its hard to get them all in agreement. Becausetheyre obviously looking for input now, from every country thathas the bodies in place and the technical committees in place.Thats where they get all the suggestions for changes from. Then,they are digested and evaluated for merit, made into a draft andthen ultimately into the new standard. I would like to hope thatnext time there will be some more significance.Joe: Where does MOCG play a role and where are they going inthe future? Whats their direction?Lindsay: We firmly support all of the standards. SupportISO-9000, all its industry derivatives. We also support theenvironmental standard, ISO-14000. As well as the health andsafety standard, 18001. So that certainly isnt going away. Wellcontinue to consult and help clients. And offer the training thatthey need, too. We work a lot with the small to mid-size Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemscompanies, who are still saying, "We dont know anything aboutit. Come help us understand the requirements. Decide whetherwe want to get registered, use them as a framework. Weregetting to that stage now where the owner or the leader of theorganization cannot get his or her arms around everything."They need to be able to start to let go and they need to be ableto have defined ways of doing it. So that they have theconfidence that the quality will be there and this body ofknowledge is never going to walk out the door because theydepend on one person and one department. So that need willcontinue and we will continue to service that need. If newopportunities present themselves, certainly well be developingthose.Joe: Where would you send someone to learn about ISO, as anew initiative?Lindsay: There are still organizations out there where its a sell.Its a hard sell. Maybe its the quality manager that says, "Weneed to do it. I know a little bit. I know enough to be dangerous.But I want to sell internally." I would say that one person shouldgo out and get themselves in an ISO-9000 public course. Thenthey can have two days understanding the requirements and howthey would apply those requirements in their own environment.Now, when that person is then successful, they go back. Theystart to talk to the owner of the organization and say, "This issomething that I think we should do and these are theopportunities. Someone from sales has already talked to meabout a couple of customers that have been murmuring aboutwanting us to do this. How about I bring someone in and they cantalk to the management group about it?"Then this is where we would probably come in and do apresentation to the entire management team or some generalawareness training. So they can understand, what is it and what Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systemsis it not? As weve talked about over the last few minutes, thereare a lot of misnomers out there and lots of things that need tobe clarified to take the fear away.And again, help an organization decide, "What do we have theappetite for here? Do we have the appetite for a deep initiativethats going to be far-reaching, thats going to have lastingimprovements? Or do we have the appetite here to just try, ascheaply ad as quickly as possible, to get that certificate on thewall by any means possible?" That means getting an ISO programthats got a canned quality manual and a canned procedure. Thenwell do that. The organization has to ask themselves, "What is itthat we want out of this?"Again, the owner of the company has to say, "Its interesting. Thequality managers saying we should do ISO. Ive got the VP ofOperations saying we should do a Lean Initiative. I wonder if wecan bring all of these things together." Thats where wed say,"Absolutely. You would be crazy not to, if you keep those twoinitiatives separate. Then youre not capitalizing on all of theseopportunities and using a single program to pull them alltogether."Joe: You believe that ISO has to be tied to business metrics tomake it sustainable and to make it workable?Lindsay: How else will you know how valuable it has been? Howwill you be able to judge it, as an organization? And say, "Wow. Itwas a resource strain. It took us a lot of time and it was quitepainful." But how will you know where you were before, in orderto say 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, five years later, howhave we changed? How have we grown? How have we improved?What was its value, long term? That can only be done by buildingin the metrics, so you can see the before and after. Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Business901 Podcast TranscriptionImplementing Lean Marketing Systems Joseph T. Dager Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Ph: 260-438-0411 Fax: 260-818-2022 Email: jtdager@business901.com Web/Blog: http://www.business901.com Twitter: @business901What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated onmany difficult issues. Joes ability to combine his expertise with "out of thebox" thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, costeffectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure towork with." James R.Joe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive company providingdirection in areas such as Lean Marketing, Product Marketing, ProductLaunches and Re-Launches. As a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt,Business901 provides and implements marketing, project and performanceplanning methodologies in small businesses. The simplicity of a singleflexible model will create clarity for your staff and as a result betterexecution. My goal is to allow you spend your time on the need versus theplan.An example of how we may work: Business901 could start with aconsulting style utilizing an individual from your organization or a virtualassistance that is well versed in our principles. We have capabilities toplug virtually any marketing function into your process immediately. Asproficiencies develop, Business901 moves into a coach’s role supporting theprocess as needed. The goal of implementing a system is that the processeswill become a habit and not an event. Business901 Podcast Opportunity Expert Status Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean? Copyright Business901

Is it an insult to say that it's documented

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Is it an insult to say that it’s documented — Document Transcript