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Subject:Re: ISO 9000 -- seeming to be, and not to be... From:Typo? What tpyo? 27-Sep-1994 0951 <jong -at- TNPUBS -dot- ENET -dot- DEC -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 27 Sep 1994 09:59:44 EDT
Our department worked to achieve ISO 9002 certification as a
publications group. (We have been absorbed, so the effort is on
hiatus.) It's true the ISO standards mainly work to ensure that
you turn out consistent product, and that your product could be
consistently lousy 8^)
However, the essence of Dr. Deming's work was that consistency
*is* quality. The essence of Crosby's work is that quality is
conformance to specifications, so the ISO requirements for
adherence to written procedures achieves makes you achieve that
end as well. If you are able to pass ISO inspection then you
are, in a very real sense, already turning out quality products.
Finally, there is a quality-improvement mechanism built in to the
ISO standards: the part that mandates a corrective-action
procedure. My perspective is that an effective corrective-action
procedure, which includes mechanisms to ensure that problems are
fixed and do not recur, forces a group to improve its quality
over time -- the rate depends on how often problems crop up, but
if you follow the procedure you are irresistibly driven to higher
levels of quality. I think that's what you're looking for!
