Iso 9000 series of standards

1. Iso 9000 series of standards
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

2. 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.
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Best regards