. It’s an unfortunate fact that to the majority of small and medium-sized businesses, ISO9000 registration is seen as nothing more than a necessary burden. ISO9000 registrations are still increasing exponentially and are fast becoming a pre-requisite for even small businesses who want to bid for government and large business contracts. So what’s going wrong with quality and how can it be put right? Generally certified companies fall into two broad categories: the first needs to have an ISO certificate in order to supply a particular customer and pays little attention to it between audits. The second comprises companies that realise the real benefits of operating an ISO90000 – based system.
There are a number of benefits. In order of significance, they are
1;. Visibility of the processes at work in your organisation.
2. A mechanism to change those processes that ensures that the changes are implemented and reinforced.
3. Comfort and peace of mind that everything is being carried out as it is supposed to be and that things that need checked are being checked.
4. Cost reduction.
5. Ability to scale operations and recognise capacity problems.
6. Positive brand associations.
7. You need it for some contracts.
You may notice that ‘customer focus’ isn’t on the list. That’s because customer focus is the main theme that drives the whole process in its entirety. It is the fundamental reason for bothering in the first place. Look at the above points, which I suspect will differ drastically from those suggested by accreditation bodies, and it is easy to see why quality fails to do anything for smaller entrepreneurial organisations. If you only have a few employees, you will already have total visibility and a mechanism for changing things. The quality system I just something that needs to be updated every time something changes. The key goal of these companies is to minimise the registration and therefore, the associated cost and pain. For these companies however, there is also a hidden benefit. ISO9000 offers a mechanism that allows companies to expand beyond the entrepreneurial structure. As an organisation grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep control of everything and eventually, the company will run into management problems. Having a ‘guide book’ for how your organisation is run means that others can put it into practice. Put another way, you can delegate decisions to the quality system.
Benefits for larger companies who want to get the most out of quality, there are four real obstacles to realising the benefits of quality management.
1;. Lack of management buy – in
2. Lack of substance in the quality system
3. The administration required for its upkeep
4. Lack of employee involvement
Buy in: Sometimes you would be forgiven for thinking that the collective noun for a group of middle managers is a ‘skeptic’. Managers are hardened to ‘flavour of the month’ notions that get introduced and pass with the changing seasons because they feel that they know how to best run their departments or businesses. The key thing to achieving ‘buy in’ is to dress down a concept instead of dressing it up. Very often managers will say something like “I’ve been doing that for years – but I don’t call it quality management, I call it common sense.” If you can introduce the principles of quality management without expecting people to be as passionate about the concept as you are as a CEO, you will have to drive it a lot less.
Lack of substance: there are plenty of Chinese proverbs covering this one. Put simply, if you don’t have specific goals for your quality system, you won’t achieve anything in particular and you won’t be able to pinpoint.
Administration: The main reason for the birth of EQMS (our computerised quality management system) was to eliminate the administration problem. Not having to worry about versions and update logs and the rest means you can focus on what actually matters to your business. In my experience, this is the single biggest reason for the failure of quality systems. Generally what happens is that a manager off-loads the administration to someone and that persons ends up effectively running the quality system. The system then becomes something that ‘catches up’ with what the manager is doing. Employee Involvement: If people don’t trip over the quality system as part of their normal work, it will stay in the corner gathering dust. The key to this is content and availability. Make your quality system the bible for the organisation. If someone wants to know how to do something, the quality system should provide the answer. Only then will it provide comfort, continuity and direction.
Over the last few years, as we have been implementing our computerised quality management system (Enigma E.Q.M.S), we have been listening to and learning from our customers. We used to joke that the only thing that the system couldn’t do for you was your audits. Well now, to some extent at least, it can. Small add-in programs can be provided with the new version of EQMS that periodically sample data and record the results in the quality system. If critical levels are breached, then a warning is e-mailed to the quality manager. The new system also comes with Web Tree, a product that allows firms to build intranet and web site menus without any technical knowledge.
Web Tree can be used to customise the menu structure in the EQMS- published quality management system, which means that companies can configure their quality systems to meet their needs and to blend seamlessly into their intranet site. John Kennedy is managing director of Enigma. Established in 2000,
Enigma is a Belfast-based innovative software and design company which specialises in medium-sized database management systems, web and graphics design and off-the shelf business software. John can be contacted at 0845; 2305445 or via info@enigma-uk.net. For more information about the firm and its product, click on to www.enigma-uk.net.
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