Re: ISO compliance
- From: "Mark Fields" <mark_no_spam_f@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 03:14:25 GMT
This is a long post just delete if not interested.
"Jerry Foster" <jmfoster711NOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1KKHg.18140$o27.2753@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Not true. You can be ISO compliant, without a third party registrar. The
The only way you can be ISO compliant is to be certified by an appropriate
agency. And the big catch is that it is not about meeting some published
standards. What you are required to do is to develop your own
standards/procedures and then follow them. Most businesses get a copy of
the ISO procedures from a couple similar businesses that are certified,
and
then write their own using these as an example. Usually, a company will
bring in an ISO consultant to help. Once your procedures are approved,
then
you must be periodically audited to ensure you are, in fact, following
them.
problem is, will your customer believe it? The purpose of the third party
registrar is to have an "independent" company look at your procedures. If a
company has a third party registrar examine their system, they issue a
certificate stating you are ISO compliant. Your customer should be
interested in who is your registrar. There are good registrars and there
are not so good. If you want to hire a registrar, ask the registrat "Who
audits you?".
Yes absolutely true.
In a nutshell, ISO requires that you write down how you are going to do
things and then do things in the way you have written.
None of this is trivial. A typical set of ISO procedures for a small
operation runs to a few hundred pages.
This was more true of the ISO 9000: 1994 standard. There is a fair amount
of documentation but the emphasis of the standard changed with the 2000
revision. A good audting company should now come in and observe and look
for "IS this company DOING what they say they are doing?". With the earlier
standard, the auditors were checking "IS this company doing what they wrote
in their procedures?". This meant for an easy audit by the auditor, he
could look for stupid minor variations in the text, even typos, and call it
a non-conformance. There was much abuse. It is no wonder a lot of people
have great misgivings and dislike for ISO. Anyway, on a group like this
which is geared towards home and craft metalworking I would be surprised to
see many people enthused about ISO 9000.
ISO is not a government program. The certifying authority is set up and
paid for by the certified businesses. You have to hire the auditors to
come
in and audit you. Etc.
True, but a better statement would be "somebody" has to hire the auditors.
I have seen cases where a company wanted / needed a supplier to have an
audit done and paid for a third party registrar to come in and audit. The
problem is, then the auditor is being paid for by your customer and likely
the audit could be biased (See below).
It is a selling point. I worked for a company that had between 200 and 500
ISO is largely about material and quality control. And, of course, the
payoff is that you can then sell to companies that require their vendors
to
be ISO certified.
employees. We went through slow times, built up to a larger company and
then hit the rocks. We maintained ISO the entire time (since 1993). Since
then I went to a smaller company (< 40 employees) and we were registered in
6 months. With the first company, we were not registered to ISO (but did
have a quality manual and procedures) and this meant every time a new
customer wanted to do business with us, they would send in a team of
auditors. Sometimes two people for 3-4 days, sometimes 4-6 people for one
day. This was expensive for both companies. After ISO registration there
was never another audit (by customers) for 3 years. How many times do you
try to get a customer's business, and are even told "your price is good, but
I want to think about it". This is a clue he doubts your ability to do the
work, deliver on time, etc. With the ISO registration it is one more thing
that helps the customer decide. Sure I know nobody looks at a lamp at
Walmart and buys it because there is a UL symbol. But, how many people are
buying a particular brand of beer or driving a certain type of car because
of an endorsement? The ISO registration is an endorsement of your company's
systems.
And, no, I'm not an ISO expert. But I've worked for a couple companies
that
became ISO certified while I was working there, so I got to watch (from a
safe distance - I'm an engineer and most engineering "stuff" isn't covered
by ISO.). But it seemed to have occupied most of Production and QC
Management's attention for the better part of a year.
Mostly true, except your company probably went for ISO 9002 registration.
If you are designing a product, then to have your company's systems to be
ISO registered then the design function includes three steps that must be
assessed. Today, the ISO 9002 registration does not exist. If those
companies still have and ISO certificate, then they must in their scope
state "...except excluding design" if the the "engineering stuff" isn't
included.
To be honest, and don't take it personally, but a lot of companies exclude
their engineering departments because the discipline is not there to have an
ISO system in place. The basics are the engineering section must 1)
initiate a design based on customer needs (i.e. design input), 2) have an
independent verification check the design against the design parameters,
then - after it is turned over to production and quality - 3) have a product
assessed to see if the design was met (design output). What usually happens
is the engineering department spends a lot of effort working on #1, step #2
is not performed (so the shop floor catches all the design flaws and makes a
lot of scrap and rework) and then step #3 is not done so the customer finds
out he is not getting what he ordered. The reason #1 is emphazised is
because overseeing all this is top management - they push the engineering
department to crank out more designs and don't expect the engineers to do #2
and #3.
Jerry
Sorry to be so long on this post, but the ultimate blame for unhappiness and
failure of ISO systems belongs with in your own companies and the problem
lies at the top level of management. Usually the owner or CEO "wants ISO"
but will not walk the talk. That is why the small companies compete so
well, the business owner is involved and makes good decisions. If there is
a profit and the company is doing well, this means either 1) there is a
system in place and there is no need to have a third party auditor, or 2)
you are doing something very unique and there's no competition so you can
charge as much as you need to cover a poor system.
Mark
.
- References:
- ISO compliance
- From: Wayne Lundberg
- Re: ISO compliance
- From: Jerry Foster
- ISO compliance
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