Iso 9000 management

1. Iso 9000 management
You may have read the title of this article as being relevant to the introduction of the new
ISO 900 standard [ISO9001:2008], whereas the intention is to try to protect the integrity
of audit and quality management in a time of economic downturn.
While business is prospering there is always a tendency to over populate an organisation,
or put another way to find reasons to support activities that might otherwise be
considered to be of doubtful value. I guess there may be readers who respond with 'if
only', but regardless of any specific meanness of spirit by specific management teams, the
generality of the assertion remains true. But then come the lean times, whether general as
now, or organisation specific. Besides the unfortunates who just simply go out of
business, the usual response of management dealing with reduced business is to decrease
expenses.
Unfortunately the simplest costs to recognise and decrease rarely achieve the objective of
improving the business performance. Staff cutbacks result in decreased output, but the
overhead expenses don't change. Travel, for those who remain employed is severely cut
back, so sales and marketing efforts are reduced just as more, not less, orders are needed.
And then there is the selection of staff to 'let go'. Here my concern is for the impact on
the organisation's performance and reputation through the reduction of staff loosely
defined as 'Quality function' people.
For many if not the majority of organisations the Quality function is percieved as a
required overhead. Overhead because it doesn't produce anything tangible, while being
seen to hemorrhage money that could be used more profitably, and is at the same time
required because of its perceived value in the retention of a registration believed to have
significant marketing value. While in part these perceptions are true, as ever they are only
partly so, and are so because of a lack of management interest in changing the manner in
which the business is structured.
These times of economic downturn could be the time for a management team to grasp the
nettle of change to rethink and permanently alter its attitude to quality management and
its own responsibilities. There is no reason for any organisation to have either a Quality
department, or a Head of Quality and the costs that go with it, unless they actually want
to do so for their own corporate reasons. Ask any executive why they have a senior
manager for Quality, and almost always the response will include considerations on
ISO9001 retention, internal audit, and customer interface difficulties. What they mean is
they don't understand ISO9001, and over time the Quality function has taken on
responsibilities from other functions and become semi-indispensible, often acting as a
local guardian of what itself believes to be the company interest. So what could we do
differently?

2. Quality, meaning doing things well - is surely the responsibility of all managers a
business. In a manufacturing unit the managers of manufacturing don't claim to be 'not
responsible' for the quality of their products. Similarly 'procurement responsibility'
includes buying the right items of acceptable quality. For both of these, as for others in
the organisation it is common to find the Quality function interfering with both the
operation and the authority of local managers. So what can be done to improve this
administrative and cost anomaly, without prejudice to the operation and its outward
appearance?
The solution is simple. Discard any Quality department that relates to my typical case,
managers, staff and position in the organisation's hierarchy structure. Transfer any
technical staff masquerading as Quality Engineers to the functions they purport to serve
and ensure that the receiving managers understand their new role and responsibilities as
being totally responsible for the performance of their unit of business. They have the staff
they have the responsibility.
There is left only the simple role of a quality function - the administration of the
registered management system. A suitable description of this might be Systems Integrity.
It is not necessary to have a manager for this activity, neither is it a full time task. Only
Internal Audit remains, and for this the clear answer is to devolve responsibility for that
to those competent to deliver results acceptable to the business managers.
Outsourcing the internal audit provides an effective method of generating useful audit
outcomes, and a cost lower than any similarly competent local staff could deliver, and
free of local bias or distraction.
A good question to ask - "would I have a Quality department' manager and staff if I was
starting this company again with my own money"? For me the answer is NO!
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