Productivity and Quality Improvement
3.3 Achieving ISO 9000 Registration
An organization may decide that a quality assurance system should be developed that meets the ISO 9000 standards because of a need to control the quality of its products and services, the need to reduce the costs associated with poor quality, or the need to become more competitive. Or, an organization may choose this path simply because its customers expect it to do so, or because a regulatory body has made it mandatory. A quality system is then developed that meets the requirements specified by one of the three standards: ISO 9001, ISO 9002, or ISO 9003. In the course of doing so, many ISO guidelines may be considered (see Table 5.14).
Once a quality system has been developed and implemented, the orga- nization must carry out an internal audit to make sure the system is working properly. Then an accredited external auditor (registrar) is invited to evaluate the effectiveness of the quality system. If the auditors like what they see, they will certify that the quality system has met all of the ISO’s requirements. They
TABLE5.14 ISO Guidelines
ISO 9000-1 Provides a “road map” for the ISO family of publications, clarifying concepts, and briefly explaining what each ISO publication is about.
ISO 9000-2 Provides help in implementing ISO 9001, ISO 9002, or ISO 9003.
ISO 9000-3 Directed to software businesses and describes how to use ISO 9001 to set up a quality system.
ISO 9000-4 Addresses issues of product dependability, meaning reliability, maintainability, and availability.
ISO 9004 Assists in the development of a quality system, provides focus on customer service, deals with organizations that process solids, liquids, or gases as part of their production process, and discusses concepts and methods for generating quality improvements.
ISO 10011 Assists in the development of an internal quality audit program and explains how to verify the existence of quality elements and how to verify that quality objectives are being met. Describes the qualifications that internal auditors should have. Describes how a quality system audit program should be managed.
ISO 10012-1 Ensures that the quality assurance measuring equipment meets all ISO requirements.
Source: Adapted from International Organization for Standardization website at: www.isho.ch.
will then issue an official certificate to the organization and they will record this achievement in their registry. The organization can then announce to the world that the quality of its products and services is managed, controlled, and assured by a registered ISO 9000 quality system.
ISO distinguishes betweenquality system requirementsandproduct quality requirements. Quality system requirements are characteristics or properties that should be evident in systemic elements. Product quality requirements are characteristics or properties that products (or services) should have. ISO also distinguishes between four types of products: hardware, software, processed materials, and services (notice that a service is considered a product). The quality of a product depends on whether
The product is routinely updated to meet changing market requirements and opportunities.
Characteristics the marketplace needs and wants are designed into the product.
Every instance of the product precisely conforms to the product design.
Customer support is provided throughout the life cycle of the product.
An organization is viewed as a network of processes through which inputs are transformed into outputs. Organizations must identify, organize, and manage this network of processes. The link or interface between each process must be clearly defined and well-managed. Product quality depends on how well this network of processes works. Therefore, this network must be routinely monitored and analyzed, and the continuous improvement of this network must be a high priority. When evaluating a quality system process, the following questions must be examined.
Have procedures been developed to control this process?
Are the procedures that control this process documented and well-defined?
Are the procedures that define this process completely deployed and implemented?
Are the procedures that define this process able to generate the necessary results?
Quality systems are evaluated by executive managers, first party (internal) quality auditors, external quality auditors (independent bodies), and the organization’s customers.
A quality system should be clearly documented by writing procedures, so that changes in quality are easier to detect and measure because they can be compared with the way things were done in the past. Documents provide objective evidence that a process has been defined, procedures have been approved, and procedural changes are under control.
4 SUMMARY
Many organizations, both in the public and private sectors, have adopted a management approach that builds on the four basic concepts of total quality management: (1) continuous improvement, (2) customer focus, (3) total partic- ipation, and (4) social networking. In contrast to more traditional management approaches that advocate “don’t make waves” and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” continuous improvement (CI) programs promote an ongoing search for ways to do things better, even when existing practices and procedures appear to be operating reasonably well. CI programs often originate from the “bottom-up”
and tend to focus on incremental improvements in existing practices by applying detailed analyses to identify specific root causes of inefficiency and waste.
It has been suggested that TQM and related CI approaches have not been particularly effective in problem areas characterized by complex, interlocking causes and effects. And while broad participation and involvement is a cor- nerstone of TQM, strong, reliable methods for the day-to-day coordination of interactions among people within an organization have not yet been provided.
TQM does not provide a viable alternative to the strategic planning model, where planners try to predict the future and then create a plan that addresses that fu- ture. However, various components from TQM/CI approaches can (and should) be effectively blended into an overall strategic management process.
Perhaps the most important lesson to learn from efforts in the 1980s and 1990s to improve productivity and to ensure the quality of services is the fact that it is relatively easy to establish a productivity and quality improvement program.
The hard part is to sustain such efforts. The full potential of productivity and quality management techniques has not yet been realized in terms of their application to programs in the public sector. However, the increasing emphasis on efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in the conduct of public programs provides additional incentives for administrators to undertake evaluations and apply the results in the improvement of program performance.
ENDNOTES
1. MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity. Made in America: Re-gaining the Productive Edge. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 1989.
2. Mary Tenopyr. Trifling he stands. Personnel Psychology. Vol. 34, 1981.
3. Russell L. Ackoff and Jamshid Gharajedaghi. Mechanisms, organisms and social systems. Strategic Management Journal. Vol. 5, 1984, pp. 289–300.
4. L. Edwin Coate. TQM on campus: implementing total quality management in a university setting. Business Officer. Vol. 24, No. 5, November 1990.
5. W. Edwards Deming. The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education, second edition. Potomac, MD: W. Edwards Deming Institute, 1994, chapter 4.
6. W. Edwards Deming. Out of Crisis. Potomac, MD: W. Edwards Deming Institute, 1986, chapter 2.
7. Project Management Institute Standards Committee. A Guide to the Project Man- agement Body of Knowledge. 1996. Covers a wide range of topics related to the management of projects and includes an extensive glossary to provide a common vocabulary for management planning.
8. L. P. Sullivan. Quality function deployment. Quality Progress. June 1986.
9. L. P. Sullivan. Quality function deployment. Quality Progress. June 1986. States that “The QFD system has been used by Toyota since 1977, following four years of training and preparation. Results have been impressive. . . . Between January 1977 and April 1984, Toyota Autobody introduced four new van-type vehicles. Using 1977 as a base, Toyota reported a 20% reduction in start-up costs on the launch of the new van in October 1979; a 38% reduction in November 1982; and a cumulative 61% reduction at April 1984. During this period, the product development cycle (time to market) was reduced by one-third with a corresponding improvement in quality because of a reduction in the number of engineering changes.”
10. The sectors with the highest penetration of QFD were transportation (86%), construction (82%), electronics (63%), and precision machinery (66%). Many of the service companies surveyed (32%) were also using QFD. Specific design applications in Japan range from home appliances and clothing to retail outlets and apartment layout designs.
11. Yoji Akao, ed. Quality Function Deployment. Cambridge, MA.: Productivity Press, 1990.
12. After a worldwide search, the Japanese Society for Quality Control Technique Development proposed the following new tools for quality control in 1976: Relations Diagram, Affinity Diagram (KJ method), Systematic Diagram (Tree Diagram), Matrix Diagram, Matrix Data Analysis, Process Decision Program Chart (PDPC), and Arrow Diagram.
13. The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) process was developed over a fifty year period from 1945 to 1995 under the leadership of Genrich Altshuller, based on his work in the Russian patent office. Altshuller began to classify patents from simple modifications to major innovations. As he studied the most innovative patents, Altshuller began to identify the principles that led to this innovation. He also began to develop a series of algorithms for solving the most difficult problems.
One of the key focuses of TRIZ is identifying and solving the basic contradiction at the root of the problem—an approach different from trying to find a good trade- off. TRIZ is a systematic way of solving the contradiction. TRIZ is also useful in reducing unneeded functions in a product, and thus reducing its cost and improving its reliability.
14. The main “bottom line” benefits cited for QFD are (1) greater likelihood of product success in the marketplace (due to the precise targeting of key customer requirements), (2) reduced overall design cycle time (mainly due to a reduction in time-consuming design changes—an important benefit, since customer requirements are less likely to have changed since the beginning of the design project), (3) more frequent design cycles, which mean that products can be improved more rapidly than the competition, (4) reduced overall cost due to reducing design changes,
which are not only time consuming but very costly, especially those that occur at a later stage), and (5) reduced product cost by eliminating redundant features and over-design.
15. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, created in 1987, is given to busi- ness—manufacturing and service—and to education and health care organizations that are judged to be outstanding in seven areas: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management, and business results. The award is named for Malcolm Baldrige, who served as Secretary of Commerce from 1981 until his death in a rodeo accident in 1987. His managerial excellence contributed to long-term improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of government.
16. It is estimated that $500,000 to $1,000,000 bottom-line benefits can be achieved yearly (on average) for dedicated six sigma practitioners (often called six sigma black belts—a term originated by Motorola) through projects that can average
$75,000 to $175,000 in value through the improvement of cycle time, reduction of defects, cost reduction, and so forth.
17. Forrest W. Breyfogle. Implementing Six Sigma: Smarter Solutions Using Statistical Methods. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999.
18. Language Processing Method. Center for Quality Management. Cambridge, Mass., 1995.
19. Ted Walls and David Walden. Understanding unclear situations and each other using the language processing method. Center for Quality Management Journal. Vol. 4, No. 4, Winter 1995, pp. 29–37.
20. Gary Burchill. Structure process improvement at the naval inventory control point.
Center for Quality of Management Journal. Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 1996, pp. 22–31.
21. Thomas Lee and David Walden. Designing integrated management systems. Center for Quality of Management Journal. Vol. 7, No. 1, Summer 1998, p. 14.
22. Russell Ackoff. Creating the Corporate Future. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1981.
23. International standardization began in the electrotechnical field with the establish- ment of the International Electrotechnical Commission in 1906. Established in 1926, the International Federation of National Standardizing Associations (ISA) carried out pioneering work in a number of fields. The activities of ISA ceased in 1942, however, due to the Second World War. Following a 1946 meeting in London, delegates from 25 countries agreed to create a new international organization, “the object of which would be to facilitate the international coordination and unification of industrial standards.” The International Organization for Standardization began to function officially on February 23, 1947.
24. The format of credit cards, phone cards, and “smart” cards, for example, is derived from an ISO international standard that defines such features as an optimal thickness (0.76 mm) that permits these cards to be used worldwide.