ISO9000 Paperless Quality Management System

WHAT IS ISO9000

ISO9000 is an internationally recognised standard applying to the management of quality and the quality of management. It has several parts, each applying to different organisations according to their scope of operations. For the purposes of this system ISO9000 is taken as a generic term applying to all these variants.

While the wording of the ISO9000 specifications is couched in terms most obviously applying to manufacturing companies, it is intended to be interpreted in ways that can apply to almost any organisation. It is presently used by service industries (accountants, solicitors etc.) and the public sector (local authorities, education etc.)

The standard is not by any means a description of how an organisation shoud be run - there is such an enormous variety of organisations, each with their special methods and customer requirements, that an attempt to prescribe the working practices for everybody would be irrelevant and futile. The standard is therefore more like a detailed management agenda. It lists a number of topics that any good organisation should address in its own way, and requires some means of ensuring that the working methods and monitoring system for each topic are efficient and effective.

While companies can use the standard as a management guide for their own purposes in achieving effective control, the bottom line for many is having a certificate awarded by a qualified external agency to say that they have it cracked.

In order to get this coveted certificate, it is necessary for the organisation to submit to examination by an external assessor. The assessor will visit the company, check through all the paperwork, check for evidence that the company does everything that it should, chat with selected staff to ensure they understand what part they play in achieving product or service quality, and finally prepare a report detailing where the organisation has missed something. It is unusual for an organisation to get through this without comment, but generally these comments are "minor", which means that the certificate can be awarded, subject to the problems being sorted out in an agreed (shortish) period of time.

It is said that an organisation has to do only 3 things:

• Say what they do. The management standards and policy are set down in a quality manual, which is complemented usually by a number of detailed procedures, works instructions etc.
• Do what they say. All the operations (including the conduct of meetings, sales orders, purchasing, design etc.) must be performed as specified in the documents, and there must be no additional practices undocumented.
• Prove it! There must be evidence of every process having been done and checked as required. This applies to the signing of sales orders and goods received notes, as well as production batch records or techincal reports.

This is something of an over-simplification, but it gives a general idea of what it is all about.

Email: iso9000@grossi.co.uk Phone: +044 (0)1633 430166 Fax: +044 (0)1633 421014

Postal Address: ISO9000 Software Services Grossi Business Systems 2 Laburnum Cottages, Caerleon Road Ponthir NP18 1HE, WALES, UK

9/7/1999