Late last year, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), published the Draft International Standard (DIS) versions of the ISO 9000:2000. Although there will be at least one more round of voting before the new standards are adopted, the DIS provides adequate information for organizations to use in planning for the new approach. What is almost certain is that the new standards will be effective by this year end.
A key change is the adoption of a process approach to the quality management system (QMS). This is based on the concept that all work is accomplished as part of a process, and that a QMS is most effective when developed as a family of interrelated processes. It requires that an organization think through its processes and understand how they are interrelated. The units of measure for process performance are multiple: cycle time, cost and customer satisfaction.
One of my criticisms of ISO 9001:1994 was that it focused on the organization rather than the customer. To succeed, information on customer satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction must be monitored as one of the measurements of QMS performance. This should form the basis for continual improvement and competitiveness.
According to the ISO 9001:2000, certain customer requirements must be determined, such as specific product requirements, availability, delivery, support requirements, non-customer specific product requirements, and regulatory and legal requirements. Several organizations may already have most of these in place, but the standard now specifies the type of information that must be collected and documented. This may force organizations to formalize their approaches in order to show evidence that customer requirements are taken into consideration.
Further, organizations must now identify and implement communication “arrangements” (methods) with their customers. Again, many organizations probably do this currently but may not have formalized their processes. The information between the organization and its customers is related to products, inquiries, contracts, order handling, changes, complaints and feedback.
Finally, for any system to succeed, the leadership role of top management and availability of competent resources is a must. They must:
- Identify processes needed to satisfy customer needs
- Determine their sequence and interactions
- Determine methods to operate and control these processes
- Ensure availability of information to operate and monitor them
- Operate, measure, monitor and control them
- Analyze pertinent data
Take action to achieve planned results and improvements.
CREDITS: Suresh Lulla, Founder & Mentor, Qimpro Consultants Pvt. Ltd.