ISO 9001 Guidance and Documents

During the past festive week in Malaysia, I experienced a week-long of slow and/or non-connectivity from my broadband service provider - CELCOM. I spoke to its Customer Care reps five times and was utterly dismayed by their responses and logic every time. I discovered that the reps will always try to pin the blame on me first before admitting to anything else - like if my modem settings were off or my laptop was in someway dysfunctional. Finally, one of them confessed that the slow connection was due to high connectivity traffic. So due to their inadequate infrastructure to handle the high connnectivity volume during public holidays, customers like me had to suffer. But think about it - it's not my problem. You fixed the subscription rate and I had no say in it. So why should I care now that you cannot fulfill customer requirements? And Celcom does not offer any apologies nor rebates to show their empathy towards its customers. This is a classic example of how a business is not managing its customer satisfaction levels well. I am scouting around for an alternative broadband service provider and I am sure that thousands of other subscribers are doing the same thing right this minute.

Now if the ISO 9001 QMS was in place and implemented effectively, a viable solution would have been identified and necessary actions would have been planned out and implemented. Additional capital expenditure would certainly induce commercial sustainability and growth over the longer term. If businesses keep going for the short term profits by promising empty promises that they actually plan not to deliver, sooner or later the red ink will show up on their financial reports. A lesson in the history of business failures is always good for the management.

Here is a sample procedure for ISO 9001 Internal audit.

Top management reviews the quality management system at planned intervals in order to ensure its continuing suitability, adequacy and effectiveness. This review includes assessing opportunities for improvement and the need for changes to the quality management system, including the quality policy and quality objectives. The management reviews are usually chaired by the [CEO/Managing Director] and attended by the Management Representative, Document Controller and members of the Quality Management System Committee.

Management Representative (with the assistance of the QMS Committee) provides the following inputs for the management review

• Customer feedback
• Process performance and product conformity
• Status of preventive and corrective actions
• Follow-up actions from previous management reviews
• Changes that could affect the quality management system;
• Recommendations for improvement

The outputs from the management review include decisions and actions related to the

• improvement of the effectiveness of the quality management system and its processes,
• improvement of product related to customer requirements, and
• resource needs.

Management reviews are basically a top-level review of the last period's performance results of the QMS as a whole. The main objective is to discover opportunities for improvement. Since this is a top-level review meetings where decisions are made, a lot can be achieved for the QMS. So take full advantage of them in order to enhance your QMS further.

The Management Representative is appointed by the top management of an organization. Irrespective of other responsibilities, he/she is responsible and has the authority in

• ensuring that processes needed for the quality management system are established, implemented and maintained,
• reporting to top management on the performance of the quality management system and any need for improvement, and
• ensuring the promotion of awareness of customer requirements throughout the organization.

The responsibility of the Management Representative also includes liaison with external parties on matters relating to the quality management system.

The Management Representative is usually assisted at the departmental level by Quality Representatives. This position is assumed by the respective Department Managers. The Quality Representatives are responsible for the quality processes which are applicable to their respective departments.

The Quality Representatives head their respective Quality Improvement Teams which are established for the purpose of monitoring processes and identifying opportunities for improvements. Members of the Quality Improvement Teams comprise of key personnel within the departments/process areas who are appointed by the Quality Representative to assist him/her at the process-level.

The Management Representative is also assisted by an appointed Document Controller whose responsibility is to implement the Control of Documents and Control of records procedures.

Collectively, the Management Representative, Quality Representatives and the Document Controller make up the Quality Management System Committee. This committee meets regularly to provide relevant inputs and resolutions for the quality management system. The structure of the Quality Management System Committee is as follows:

• Management Representative – Chairman
• Document Controller – Secretary
• Quality Representatives - Members

[Note: The above is just an example. If you are a small organization, a QMS Committee and Quality Improvement Teams may not be necessary]

To facilitate effecetive communications, the Quality Management System Committee and the Quality Improvement Teams, respectively, meet regularly in order to ensure that communication regarding the effectiveness of the quality management system takes place. Pertinent information regarding the quality management system is then posted by the Management Representative on the Bulletin Board for the benefit of all employees. Employees are generally encouraged to provide their inputs towards the quality management system through suggestion boxes which are located at strategic locations within the organization’s premises.

Note: Some organizations employ this method but results may vary among other organizations. The key is to continually improve on these methods/processes.

The ISO 9001 serves two fundamental purposes:

• It demonstrates your organization's ability to meet all customer and legal requirements related to your products, which includes all goods and services; and
• It aims to enhance your customers' satisfaction towards your product, where this is achieved by determining and meeting all customer and legal requirements related to the products.

Most countries have used these inherent characteristics of the ISO 9001 standard to regulate their respective economies to their benefits. By requiring a certification to the ISO 9001 standard, regulators from the governments are able to optimize their markets by ensuring that

• only quality products are allowed to enter their local economies so that there will be less consumer-related issues, and
• all local statutory and regulatory requirements related to the products are complied with.

Not only international economies are benefiting from the ISO 9001 standard, local organizations are also able to control the quality of all products that enter into their organizations through the purchasing process where suppliers of goods and services can also be made to comply with related legal requirements.

All of this control reduces the cost of managing and doing business, and therefore increasing the bottomline. ISO 9001 may be used to optimize your operations if understood and used correctly.