What Is ISO For?
By Philip B. Crosby
When I was a quality engineer back in the good old days
we would go check out potential suppliers. Using a list of questions and
requirements developed for and by Defence Department contractors, we would
evaluate the company’s probability of delivering to us what we were going to
order. Of course if what they made were a catalogue item or considered to be a
commodity we didn’t go visit them at all. The results of these visits were
then shared with the Purchasing Department who considered them carefully and
then usually placed the order based on price.
Today the emphasis is based on what is called
"third party" verification. When a company goes through the process
of being certified, or registered, as complying with ISO 9000 or other
variations of ISO standards then they are considered to be acceptable.
Purchasing can then feel free to go ahead and place the order based on price.
After all if everyone is considered acceptable then money is the only
difference.
Of course the real test of worth is whether the
product or service being produced does in fact meet all the requirements of
the purchase agreement. Corporations like to do business with suppliers who
have a success track along that line. So most of them keep a formal or
informal record that classifies their suppliers in accordance with results.
All of this could lead one to believe that thinking
an ISO certification automatically brings business might not be a valid
concept. After all it does not pretend to be program of quality improvement or
management.
So what is ISO for? What does it accomplish for the
company or for the quality professional who is administering it? What do they
receive for all that money, attention, and involvement? Is it worth it? Does
it advance his or her career? Does it make the stock of the company more
valuable? There are some clear advantages:
q First
of all the certification is a ticket that gets the company on the list of
those who have been willing to comply with the collection of Quality Assurance
materials put together by the International Standards Organization.
q Second
it provides the Quality Professional with the opportunity to use the results
of the certification process as a lever to supply the quality education
program that will let the organization progress toward becoming known as
reliable. That is a recognition that actually brings business to the company.
q Third
the collection of procedures does supply some authority for getting people to
actually follow some of the more useful ones that can be inserted into the
package.
I worry about the move to Internet buying (B to B) and
what is going to happen to Quality in that case. The system is based on this
"third party verification." Suppliers will be deemed qualified
because they are on the list. Yet they will not have to show that they
actually are useful and reliable, only that some paid auditor thinks they are.
Commodity items will fare well but specialty things may be suspect. One of
these days the quality of a supplier’s output will be listed like their
credit rating. This will be based on conformance to requirements results, not
compliance to a set of procedures.
My experience is that organizations who want to
truly achieve the results that get them the reputation for being reliable have
to have a clear policy on quality; have to educate everyone about their
personal responsibility to create a culture of prevention; have clear
requirements about the product and systems (ISO is useful here); and
management has to insist, by example and direction, that everyone work this
way.
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© Copyright 2000 Philip Crosby
Associates II, Inc. All rights reserved.