Focused Quality Systems

ISO 9000:2008

Posted by Ed - 13/01/09 at 07:01 pm

Last week I attended an update on the changes to the standard.  Step by step we reviewed the changes.  Many times there were interpretation issues followed by discussion. In the end, it was concluded that it would be up to the ISO 9000 Assessors  to interpret the standard. This took me back to the my first assessment audit in the early 1990’s there was a lot of interpretations then as well.

My thing is not about verbiage and interpretations. As veteran of many Quality System audits both internally and as a Supplier Quality Auditor,  I do things within the standard but differently.

My basic assumption is that if a company has been in business for five or more years,  making money, and have happy customers, they have a quality system which may or may not be documented. My job is to find it by using  an ISO based checklist, asking questions, and looking at objective evidence. Toward the end, I ask the harder questions, ” Is this quality sensitive process documented” and show me where it says what we just saw?

What are your thoughts or audit approaches that worked for you?  Share a story?

At any time please feel free to respond to this question: What is your biggest quality concern which if solved would significantly benefit you and/or your company?

Your responses will determine the direction of this blog.

eb

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 7:08 pm and is filed under ISO 9000. The entry is tagged under You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.