Re: ISO9000 credibility

["Walker, Arlen P" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM>]

      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.

No, it's not a weakness. ISO9000 certification means you are producing
precisely what you claim to be producing. If the customer is so stupid as
to
think ISO certification is a stamp automatically insuring high quality,
then
yes the customer will be fooled. Fortunately, most customers know enough to
ask for product specifications as well (I haven't met one yet who didn't).
And for them, ISO certification is a strength, not a weakness, because when
they see it they are assured those specifications are being met.

      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?

But it does. ISO starts by admitting that not every customer wants (or can
afford) the same standard of quality. For some customers, nominal values
plus or minus 10% are good enough. Others will want plus or minus .1% or
less. ISO certification gives the customer the assurance that the level of
quality set forth in the spec is indeed the level of quality in the
product.
It's up to the customer to decide if what level of quality is satisfactory;
all ISO9000 cares about is making sure the customer gets the product as
specified.

Personally, I kind of like that approach. It leaves it up to me to decide
how fussy I want to be, rather than some bureaucrat somewhere. I don't want
some group in a smoke-filled room somewhere decided exactly what level of
quality will satisfy me. That's a decision I'd rather make myself.

      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.

And if it did, I'm sure that whatever feature set some faceless desk jockey
somewhere chose wouldn't fit the customer base. It would force some
customers to pay for features they didn't want or need, while forcing
others
to do without features they wanted. Better to ensure the specifications for
the product accurately match the product and let the customer choose the
one which fits the application.

      ISO9000 will not find anything to argue against the manufacturer as
      long as it have written procedures to cheat you in this way!

If your point is that people with the business ethics of pond scum can
still perpetrate fraud under ISO9000, you're right. ISO isn't a
law-enforcement
organization, nor is it a professional society with a code of ethics. It
doesn't claim to be either. It's simply providing a mechanism to ensure
that
you produce what you claim to produce. Consumer fraud protection is up to
the local governments. Let them do their job and let ISO do its job.

      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.

But the point of ISO certification is to have another set of eyes with wide
experience go over your procedures. If you create your own procedures, you
can always make some mistakes and leave a hole. When the auditors go over
the procedures, they can find the holes you missed.

If you intend to produce crap, ISO9000 will help you ensure that crap is
what you produce. But if you intend to produce quality, ISO9000 will help
you ensure that you do indeed produce quality. It's not a "joke;" it's not
a
silver bullet, either. It's a tool. It's up to you whether you use it
wisely
or foolishly.


Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
----------------------------------------------
In God we trust; all others must provide data.
----------------------------------------------
Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.


	http://www.documentation.com/, or http://www.dejanews.com/