As I travel and work on various boards I am exposed to organizations in different stages of development. In manufacturing, an important stage is to become ISO 9001 registered and the east coast steel fabrication company that I work with wanted to achieve this registration. Since I have over a decade of experience in this field, I jumped in and said that I would help in any way possible. All of the people reading this article that are familiar with ISO 9001 know the magnitude of this far reaching situation. While the desire exists, the journey can be as long as a year of effort, even for a well developed organization.
Many people tell me that their manufacturing business would not benefit from an ISO 9001 registration and that it would only complicate their lives. In reality, they are confused about the real purpose and application of this international standard. If they had seen the real core improvements to manufacturers who have worked to achieve and maintain ISO 9001 registration, they would understand the benefits for their own organizations.
ISO 9001 is a quality management system that documents and ensures that a company is following the standard operating procedures of the organization. In this short article I want to express the critical importance of registration and how it will help your organization. As an initial bold statement, all manufacturers should be registered to ISO 9001. To compete in today’s environment, this registration is really a prerequisite, and not an option. In my manufacturing business, we could not compete and work in the markets we are selling into without this important registration. In the international market, the ISO 9001 standard carries even more weight than here in the USA. It is also the backbone for achieving additional product certifications such as the CE monogram for selling products into the European community.
Again the key factor in developing your system and attaining ISO 9001 registration is complete buy in at the top. If the CEO is not on board, the battle may not be won. The entire organization must accept the principles and apply them to the individual circumstance to make it all work. A consultant is not a luxury, it is a necessity to help teach you the ropes and learn the nuances of the requirements. The standard is written in broad brush stokes, on purpose. It needs to apply to all businesses and therefore is not specific to your particular business. In fact, as long as your quality plan meets the minimum requirements, you may customize your documentation specifically to your situation. Since it requires a significant effort to write your Quality Plan and supporting documentation, with careful incorporation of the standard requirements, lean on your paid consultant for this heavy lifting.
The changes that will occur in your organization will develop over many years. The constant internal and external audits will identify weakness in the organization and in some cases there will be pain as these problems are resolved. Speaking from direct personal experience, not everyone in the organization will be able to adapt to these changes and some people will need to find new employment.
Back to the steel fabrication company that accepted the challenge of applying for ISO 9001 registration, they were struggling with a customer base that shut them out of large contracts, until they became registered. This action was certainly a motivator for this organization, yet the additional benefits are many. By going through a series of pre-audits and carefully working with their consultant, this company achieved their registration late last year. Now the world has opened up to them and the ISO registration is no longer a barrier, it is an advantage, in quality, sales and communications, internally and externally.
The time is now to achieve ISO 9001 registration for your manufacturing business and open the doors to additional business here in the USA and Internationally.
Roy Paulson is President of Paulson Manufacturing Corporation. www.paulsonmfg.com