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"The basic idea behind ISO 9000 is that to produce products at a
_specified, desired_ quality LEVEL (which may be fairly low!), you
must have written procedures for how you will ensure the desired
quality level, and you must follow these procedures."
This is the crucial weakness of ISO9000 quality certification process.
ISO9000 just force you to define a desired quality level and formalize your
manufacturing process accordingly.
If you decide to produce crap, it is all right, as long as you have written
procedures that describe the correct manufacturing/checking process and you
follow them. ISO9000 philosophy is: it is up to you to decide what you want
to make and which level of customer satisfaction you want to get. ISO9000
does not care about it.
From the customer's point of view, this means that he/she does not get any
assurance about the fact that the product/service will be able to satisfy
his/her needs. The manufacturer might have decided to produce ISO9000
certified crap and the customer would get it for they
uncertified-but-hard-to-gain money! There is no way to know which quality
level the manufacturer decided to keep.
IMHO, the customer satisfaction ought be the MAIN aim of a certification
procedure.
How can we trust a certification standard that does not even take it into
account?
Even worse, ISO9000 does not force the manufacturer to declare a set of
features that the product/service must have and/or minimum performances that
it must hit. It does not commit the company to get back the product and/or
give your money back if it does not comply with this set of minimum
capabilities. For example: you can buy a brand new, very expensive, car on
the basis of its impressive max speed. After having bought it, you discover
that it will never reach half of the declared speed. ISO9000 will not find
anything to argue against the manufacturer as long as it have written
procedures to cheat you in this way!
IMHO, if you are really concerned about quality, forget about ISO9000 and
similar jokes. Rather, define your own quality tests and built your
credibility on customer satisfaction.
P.S. Documentation is just a particular kind of products and should meet the
same quality criteria of everything else: it should be correct, usefull and
easy to use. Everything else is irrelevant.
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Alessandro Bottoni
Technical writer
Cad.Lab SPA
Via Ronzani 7/29
40033 Casalecchio di Reno (Bologna)
Italy
Tel Int+ 51-597357
Fax Int+ 51-597120
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