The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
(OP)
I would like to present a topic for discussion. The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008 Quality Management Systems. If a company followed the ISO 9001-2008 as a guideline for their QMS and used this system to its fullest with the discipline required to gain the most out of it but without employing a registering body what would the ramifications be? In my opinion as a quality professional I know that having an ISO 9001-2008 registered company indicates nothing about the quality of products or efficiency of operations. It only indicates this company basically purchased the registration. Any thoughts on this postulation?





RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
The ISO-9000 process is just a set of quidelines necessary for a quality program. If a company is ceritfied, there is an outside body that states that the program meets minimal guidelines. You are right, if you plan to make a poor product, you can tailor an ISO-9000 program that will still allow you to make poor products.
The companies that I've worked for have had their own QMS programs in effect. In most cases they were making a fine product. Howerver new customers were always an issue. If they would talk to us, a detailed customer review of the QMS would be required. It was easier in the long run to make the modifications in our QMS and get and maintain the ISO-9000 certification. After certification, most of these vists stopped.
--Mike--
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
Bottom line, if your company or customers want the 9001 certification, then get it. If you want it for laughs and busy work, forget it.
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
Thanks again,
Histogram
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
John
http://www.iso9001compliance.com/ISO-9001-2008
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
That said, as long as customers ask for it, if you're going to go to the effort of having policies and procedures etc. you may as well get the cert.
KENAT,
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RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
I've worked for a company that held cert/registration for a couple of years, then dropped it. They still made reference to ISO-9001 in all their literature, but were careful not to say they were certified or registered, but they "complied with". It seemed there were no hindrances to losing the certification, everything continued to run as though they were still going to have a registrar visit one day. The internal auditors took the lead to not let the QMS fail. So I guess the short, non-quantified answer would be "none".
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
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RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
Matt Lorono
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources & SolidWorks Legion
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
The word "quality" as defined by ISO is not the same word as most people think. Most people think quality means that a product works a long time without breaking, it exceeds specifications, and it has a high MTBF, etc.
NOT!
"Quality" per ISO is making the same product exactly the same each time with a controlled process. Even if the product is a piece of junk which doesn't work, you can say that it has "quality". This is an incredible blockade to American innovation and market dominance.
I've designed products for aerospace for decades and it is ALWAYS certification expense which prevents good corrections from being introduced into products, so the same junk keeps getting manufactured. Gee whiz, once again, just 2 weeks ago, we had an issue with one of our products failing. The engineering team found that they could add a simple 10-cent part and have it meet all specs, but WE AREN'T ALLOWED TO! It wouldn't be manufactured the same as the certified product therefore, it wouldn't have "quality". Re-certification would cost us like, $30,000, so even the customer OK'd the inferior product to keep getting produced.
Can't offend that God of "Quality", can we.
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
I think ISO defines quality not in a different way. It is just the purpose of the 9001 standard which covers more (or other) stuff than just the material quality. You mentioned it: It covers the whole process within a company incl. sales, purchase, manufacturing, procurement etc. These controlled processes should increase the quality level of the products, too. But it is not specifically related only to the product.
My experience is that people know in the meantime what ISO 9001:2008 means. It is good, but not automatically a certificate for 1st class product quality.
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
RE: The elimination of registration to ISO 9001-2008
I 'm not in the QA department so I can only see the results of their policies, not the details of how or why. All I know is that, from my engineering department, we are prevented many, many times from improving a project. The story from QA starts to sound the same in every company I've consulted with. "can't do", "re-cert too expensive", paper work too time consuming" along with quoting some paragraph from ISO or the FCC or other requlatory agencies.
What I do know is that, quite a few times I've seen faulty projects get shipped, sometimes unsafe and sometimes for aircarft which will carry human beings. But, the good news; All of those products had paperwork with the word "Quality" stamped on the front page.