Other Approaches to Quality Management
Oleg Zakabunin
Management consultant Social Economic Agency Klaipeda
agentura@takas.lt
During the time when Quality Management and Assurance Standards
(Series ISO 9000) for output production (service rendering) were in force, the year of
1987 was the start when the approach to these Standards changed, and the number of
skeptics for implementation of business management schemes recognised by everyone became
rather reduced. According to our data there are more than 500 companies which have
implemented such quality assurance systems in the Baltic States, and more than 700 ones in
Russia.In 1997 the International Organisation of Standardisation made a research to find
out if the Standards had justified to the understanding and expectations of their users.
The result of the research was a new version of standards (EN ISO 9000:2000), confirming
the standards and requirements for companies and organisations aspiring to belong to
“the club” of a cultured approach to business organisation”. “A club membership
card”, in its turn, is a quality assurance system, which REALLY OPERATES as well as a
certificate, which is issued and confirmed by independent certifying organisation.
The main differences between the old version of 1994 and new approaches
to quality assurance systems are as follows:
Formal approach
EN ISO 9000:2000 series of standards
decreased up to four sets:
EN ISO 9000:2000 - Quality Management and Assurance Systems. Basics and
Determinations.
EN ISO 9001:2000 - Quality Management and Assurance Systems.
Requirements.
EN ISO 9004:2000 - Quality Management and Assurance Systems.
Recommendations for Their Improvement.
EN ISO 19011 - Recommendations for Audit of Quality and/or Ecology
Means Control Systems (provided for publication in 2002).
The Standard is divided into four sections: management responsibility;
management of resources; output production and realization; measurement, analysis and
improvement.
Certification of the quality assurance system uses the standard EN ISO
9001:2000, thus companies certified their systems according to the old version (ISO
9001:1994) will be forced to make changes and to re-certify by the end of 2002.
The language of the standards has simplified.
These series is maximally coordinated with the Standard EN ISO 14000 of
Ecology Measures Control System.
The standards require that the organisation would have only six
compulsory documentation procedures, which would be different from the former one when it
was necessary to define the execution of twenty requirements.
Pithy approach
There are a lot of essential changes, however they may
be combined into four main spheres:
Procedure interpretation.
The procedure interpretation (or engineering as it is often called)
appeared in the management and assurance theory in 1950s.
It is noted in the standards as a compulsory one in quality management.
That is, any firm or organisation may and shall be interpreted as a set of interrelating
procedures.
Every procedure is a sequence of one or another business control,
management or organisation operations, starting with the acceptance of an application
letter, analysis of client requests, production, delivery, sale, further servicing, etc.
of the good (service).
Every procedure is suggested to determine so called input requirements
and the output result. That is, every process is pragmatic stages of value, price addition
to the business, consumer and society.
Management responsibility
The responsibility of the direction of a company (an organisation) for
all aspects of the quality assurance (management) system is especially emphasised. It must
demonstrate their commitment for creation, maintenance and analysis of the quality system,
providing its possibilities and constant improvement of the system, subsequent guarantee
of necessary resources, inspiration of personnel to improve services and output
production. However, “commitment demonstration” is rather more compulsory for the
representatives of audit organisations than the heads and personnel of that organisation.
Meeting consumers (clients) requirements
The context of the Standard emphasises the requirement for better
orientation of clients and consumers of production or services.
It is a must not to ascertain the demands of clients only, but also to
provide for changes of such demands according to the expectations of clients. And they
must be transformed into goals and tasks solved by quality system.
There will be a necessity to found and set particular (supplementary)
communicative forms of work with clients confirming the fact that their requirements are
considered and they are satisfied.
The organisation will have to observe how the requirements of clients
are met, to learn to set the level of requirement satisfaction and to take all the
measures for avoiding any misunderstandings.
The new version of the standards reveals the fundamental cycle of
Shucahrt - Deming which seeks for a constant improvement of management systems:
PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT (improve).
The situation of the Baltic States in the transit
sector, in our opinion, may be described as the following: over 80 companies started the
implementation of quality assurance systems since foreign countries, mostly European, as
well as partners and clients press them. During that time the heads of organisations
started to understand better the importance of quality assurance systems. The certificate
often ensures extra income because it attracts new clients. In other words, the idea, that
quality assurance systems are not only the goal, but a tool for pursuing the object, is
more and more appreciated by business structures.
Negative aspects must be marked, too. There occurs devaluation of
certain approach to quality management systems. It is much more difficult to maintain a quality
level than to reach it. In most cases, these difficulties are connected with a great
number of documents (according to the requirements of the old standards) must be prepared.
Frequently, a formal approach of independent certification organisations did not justify
expectations of the heads of companies to receive extra income from external controls.
However, this may be connected to the mistake of business heads revealed earlier during
the designing quality assurance systems. It is not a secret that, frequently, as a QUALITY
ASSURANCE SYSTEM there was its one element - a standard pack of documentation bound
to the operating management structure - sold (and purchased), and then a part of financial
means had to be allocated for unnecessary office-work. In the market there are still some
recommendations “…to implement a quality assurance system for 500 bucks”. If there
is a supply, therefore, there also may be a demand, consequently, disappointments in the
future, too.
Continuing the subject of documentation as one of the most important
stages of quality assurance system implementation certain ambiguity of the new standard
should be noted.
First of all, it restricts the requirements set for the documentation
and requires six compulsory procedures describing business processes, quality politics and
quality management only.
In the second place, the requirements for business evidences - records
of a quality assurance system - are not reduced. It will not be necessary to have
“documents ensuring an effective planning, management and control of a process”. And
the very processes necessary to be identified may amount up to 22 to 26. And these
processes must be clear, coordinated well and interconnected. In other words, the extend
of records and documentation quantity still stay as “a hard nut” for persons
responsible for quality assurance and the zone of increased subjectivity for certifying
companies.
However, new interpretations presented in the Standard ISO 9000 of the
version of 2000 gives a possibility to change the logic of business organisation and
management, may help in creating more advanced systems such as TQM - Total Quality
Management and Business Excellence Model, as well.
- The approach to the former standard versions and the requirements
set for them can be read in the article of the same author published in the third issue of
the magazine Sea of 2000.
|
