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The most significant change in the upcoming revision to ISO 9001 is probably not what you'd expect it to be: It's not customer satisfaction, continual improvement or even the process-model structure of the standard. The most significant change is the requirement for quality objectives. ISO 9001:2000 requires that quality objectives be established at each relevant function and level within the organization (i.e., just about everywhere). The manner in which quality objectives are established and managed will have an enormous impact on the organization's performance. The quality objectives will either drive strategic improvements throughout the organization, significantly elevating the importance of the quality management system, or they'll simply become a meaningless exercise in data collection. It all depends on how the task is carried out.
The basic requirements for quality objectives are quite simple:
What is quality? An academic definition of quality as it relates to business might be that quality is a product or service that consistently has zero defects, conforms to particular specifications, and is satisfactorily received by the customer. Another aspect of quality is that it is a thought process sought out by organizations to create an overall drive toward efficiency, the reduction of waste, and the continual creation of more streamlined management processes.
“Unlike twenty years ago, when the quality department was viewed as the creator of quality, now the whole concept is more ingrained into the culture of organizations,” says Ron Atkinson, past president of the American Society for Quality. “Quality is created by the people performing the function, whether it be assembling a Bluetooth device or filling out an intake form at a medical clinic. Therefore, a culture of quality is emerging in which the leadership of organizations is emphasizing that the functional areas are responsible for quality in the same way that they are responsible for manpower costs, etc.”
Welcome to Quality Digest’s 2008 Consultants Directory, listing companies that provide quality consulting services.
Check the abbreviation key on page 48 for a preview of the services offered by each company. If additional information was provided to us, you’ll find it online at http://www.qualitydigest.com/content/buyers-guides. As always, we encourage you to contact these companies or visit their web sites.
Quality Digest hasn’t evaluated nor do we endorse any of the following companies listed in this directory.
We wish you well in finding a consultant for your specific needs.
Manufacturers’ efforts to do more with less have resulted in purchasing departments sourcing cheaper products and parts, often from overseas. Such cost-cutting certainly makes purchasing look good to management. But the effect on quality professionals may be just the opposite: product or part defects, malfunctions or undesirable side effects, not to mention the challenge of producing high-quality end-products within narrow timelines and budgets. Many sleepless nights are a frequent outcome.
Because cost cutting and global sourcing are here to stay, how can quality professionals combat these monumental challenges? Root cause analysis (RCA), when fully utilized, can eliminate defects in your operations as well as defects that you inherit from suppliers, ultimately helping to maintain a satisfied and engaged customer base.
Energy generation is a multifaceted industry comprising dozens of major discrete technologies and thousands of companies. For reasons that are at once political, economic, and environmental, the energy industry occupies a central place in modern human society, and it will for the foreseeable future.
Alternative energy resources, such as photovoltaic modules and wind turbines, represent a particularly fast-growing segment of the industry. This article will look at this sector from the perspective of quality assurance and safety testing, two extremely important concerns for producers, as well as consumers, of alternative energy.
Because information in document form drives nearly every action in any organization, the ability to control this information usually means the difference between success and failure. Thus, document control remains the single most critical quality assurance discipline. As with many other systems, document control is more successful if it's simple, intuitive and user-friendly. And the first step toward this end is deciding exactly which documents need to be controlled.
Documents requiring control
"Do I need to control this document?" is one of the most frequently asked questions in organizations working toward, or maintaining, a formal management system. Given the universe of documents possibly requiring control, the question is understandable. Besides, most people would rather not control a document if they don't have to.
The ISO 9001:2000 standard provides a quick answer to the question of what must be controlled. The first sentence of section 4.2.3 on document control states, "All documents required by the quality management system shall be controlled." This means that if a document addresses or relates to any of the issues in ISO 9001:2000, it must be controlled. Here are some questions to ask when determining whether a document should be controlled:
Imagine that you oversee the quality control department for a small lug nut manufacturer that supplies the major U.S. automakers. One night, as you're watching the news, the station features a story about a car that lost one of its wheels while traveling more than 55 miles per hour. The car hit a guard rail, and all persons in the vehicle were badly injured. The ensuing investigation determines that the wheel failed because its lug nuts sheered off.
The problem ultimately is traced to a torque wrench, used during the lug nut manufacturer's final inspection, that hadn't been calibrated in more than 10 years. Consequently, it displayed incorrect torque values. You can't understand how this could have happened because your company is registered to ISO 9000 and recently achieved QS-9000 compliance. Upon reflection, however, you realize that the wrench never was entered into the calibration system and therefore never addressed during the audit.
The current economic downturn may have reduced a company’s business, but it has not reduced the requirements associated with doing business. This is particularly true for the numerous activities associated with technical data interpretation and application. For example, although the quantity of parts to be produced may be significantly less than last year, everything associated with the technical data package must still be addressed. This includes reviewing the constituent documents to determine accuracy and completeness, setting up first article inspections, generating manufacturing process plans, and so on.
In this period of reduced resources, there is even less margin for error. This means that those companies that get it right the first time have a distinct competitive advantage over those that can’t. The former are more productive, more cost-efficient, better able to meet schedules, and more valuable to their customers who are being whipsawed by rapidly changing economic conditions.
Welcome to Quality Digest’s 2008 ISO Standards Software Directory. The software that these companies create or distribute will help you to achieve or maintain registration to various quality standards of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The software products are designed to support the diverse needs of companies large and small, not only in compliance to standards, but in continuous improvement in areas of interest and industries such as: aerospace, analytical tools, benchmarking, consumer protection, corrective actions, customer satisfaction, data gathering, documentation management, energy, environmental issues, federal government agencies, going green, hazardous waste, health and safety, measurement process, process performance, return on investment, supply chains, value-adding methods, and more. If your needs concern any of these, take the time to contact these companies, and you may not need to look any further.
As with all of our directories, this guide is intended as a starting point to help readers choose the right solution for their needs. Quality Digest hasn’t evaluated, nor do we endorse, any of the products listed in this directory. Good luck finding the software solution to fit your needs.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP), and the multimillion-dollar technology platforms that have become synonymous with it, are the stuff of which out-of-this-world management ambitions are born. The excitement generated from testing the technical boundaries of ERP is admirable, if only for what it implies about a company’s passion for innovation. Often, however, the excitement short-circuits rigorous analysis of whether such innovations may be appropriate targets.
My years as a process-reengineering consultant have revealed the danger in this impetuous overreaching. I’ve personally analyzed best-in-class ERP systems that have been online for more than a decade. Each instance--a half-dozen, all told--involved billion-dollar global enterprises, all of which were focused on very different industry sectors. In all those cases, heavy investment in ERP failed to deliver the initial liftoff in organizational transformation that was anticipated.
