I have a friend who just returned from Mexico (about a year ago) where he was setting up a music ministry. Then he was slightly depressed. He said he might be closing his strawberry picking business in Watsonville, California.

I asked him if he had a quality system in his business? this would be a consistent set of processes that ensures every employee delivered what was expected. “We have some procedures but tell me more.” hope seemed come to his face.

After a short time in his office, I suggested that he have a Quality Operations Manual that documented and/or pointed to all the processes that ran the company. About a week later I delivered the first draft of the their Quality Operations Manual and he reviewed it with his people. When I visited them the following week, they were refining it to even further meet their needs.

By the end of the season, they had turned a profit, all his people knew exactly what to do, his picking reports were delivered on time and the management reports were all he needed to manage the company.

See the sidebar ISO Simple to find out how it works

For a small business a Quality Operations Manual maybe

Quality Systems come in all sizes and shapes. My first quality system  was at the Cove and it consisted of:

1. Jack’s Vision Statement: I want this to be the best cooking school in the world.

2. The end result was defined and measured: “They come as strangers and leave as hugging friends.”

3. It was powered by continuous improvement which grew it into the Fantasy Island of cooking schools with people flying into Sea Ranch and greeted with iced sparkling wine, fresh cut wild flowers and soft classical music.  At it’s height Julia Child was our guest cooking instructor for three sessions.

There was no quality manual just checklists so we didn’t forget anything, the remote corner store had only one of everything. The passion of the owner and the like minded staff  focused to meet every guest’s need. “Oh you don’t drink wine, we will get what you want for the weekend”.  Guest’s cook but never washed a dish.

The grand dinner had 8-10 courses with the same number of wines and separate silverware and dishes for each course.  As the evening progressed to flaming dessert the dishes were carefully removed to end with a clean dining room just in time for the show.

Yes, the staff who served became the stars that performed.

The guests left after Sunday Brunch at Jack’s ocean side house and after a few hours break our continuous improvement session occurred at a dinner where we tested new recipes. We reviewed the weekend from the signup to the completion. Only two questions were asked ‘what happened’ and ‘what could we do to make it better’.

That experience was the beginning of my quality career, not a bad training program. What do you think?

So material, corrections, or constructive comments in this area are welcome. My education in this area began with unstanding the new standards and acronyms.

Please join the Insiders Club and express your interest to have telediscussions on this area.

My experience has shown that when everyone knows a little, we all learn a lot.

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1. It got my internal auditors auditing with or without existing procedures.

2. This audit process alone defined the process that was being audited.

3. Critical quality check points were easily identifies during the discussion.

4. Since an audit is only a sampling, at the end of the discussion the auditor picks the most critical quality function and asks to see the data. (objective evidence)

5. Then the hardest question: “Where is this process documented?”

Exact step by step process for doing this type of audit will be  available as an insider Club member.

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Being ISO Compliant is the first step to being Certified. It means that those companies have a documented Quality System in place and they are following it according to the ISO 9000 requirements.   So when I audit them, I use the ISO 9000 based supplier checklist, review the objective evidence and verify that their quality system is functioning as required. The only box on the customer supplied checklist that I can’t check is the one where it asks  are they ISO certified.

In the early  90’s when ISO 9000 standards were released, there was initially a wait and see attitude because for large companies the costs and commitment were enormous. Then our customers started asking when we were going to get certified?

In my position as Manager of Corporate Quality Improvement, I could see it coming. Our customers would submit supplier questionnaires (two or three a week)  for us to complete.  Many  of them were almost  identical to what the ISO 9000 standard required.  So if we could see the benefit that if we were certified we would have to simply submit our certificate and we were done.

Shortly there after, I signed up ro be trained as  a Lead Auditor in Princeton New Jersey.

For big companies certification was a monstrous effort to train everyone. develop procedures, work through a quality committee, and get approvals on everything.  Internal audits had to be completes, corrective actions needed to be closed and much more.

In small companies the same thing happens but it is a little easier because the prime quality leader is usually the owner or president of the company and the number of people to train is usually a lot less.  So people get the message faster and know that the livelihood of their company depends on them doing a good job.  Because of this built in family-like environment, small companies can see that ISO compliance is simply documenting what they are already doing and ISO compliance just makes them better.

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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.

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