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This happens to be my particular area of specialization. A tech writer with
basic tools of the trade can absolutely do this, but many questions need to
be answered before agreeing to take it on. I would not accept a full ISO
registration effort if I had not received specialized training and did not
already have experience in that area. If I was new at this area I might
take the gig but absolutely would have an experienced mentor or consultant
backing me up.
There are many consulting firms out there who do this work well. Their
prices are beyond the reach of many small companies -- until it comes down
to "register to ISO or lose all of your customers". It's sometimes an okay
business decision to cut a customer or two loose and stick with another
market niche. It's also important to note that this does seem to be the
wave of the future.
ISO can also be a terrific tool for business process improvement, especially
within a small company. It does require a culture change from constant fire
fighting to movement of some attention toward fire prevention. That's a
pretty big culture change, but in many cases it's easier in a small company
than in a large one.
A basic quality manual with subset of QMS procedures can be created within a
month. There's a nice Access database template out there for $500 but a
basic Excel list of documents could work almost as well in a small firm.
Goal QPC offers some excellent resources (http://www.goalqpc.org), and I
strongly recommend Excel Partnership for training (http://www.xlp.com).
Dori Green
Technical Writer, Quality Management System Project
Associated Brands, Inc.
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