John Seddon (vanguard-method.net Tactics for Getting Started) has been helping companies improve processes for decades. He has improved organizations with ‘Systems Thinking’ based on Deming’s work and the Toyota Production System that Taiichi Ohno created in post WWII Japan. He is laser-beam focused on the customer and it shows. In this instalment, we’re going to […]
Are Our Measurements Helping Us Understand Customers? Read More »
For years we’ve had to demonstrate that we’ve improved the effectiveness of our management systems. It’s a great money-maker for the Private Sector and improving a management system helps the Public Sector work within their budgets. Easy words to say; hard to implement without some effort. Here’s a way to structure your strategy to systematically
Structure Your Continual Improvement Read More »
In 1980, The American Council of Retailers did some research on why people stopped doing business with various organizations. Here’s what they found in 1980: 64% left because they felt ignored 12% left because they were treated badly (that’s our policy) 11% didn’t feel the organization was empathetic 9% found a lower price 3% moved
Give Me What I Want! Read More »
Risk is all around us, all the time! So where does the 10,000 mile journey of ‘risk management’ begin? ISO 31000:2018 has some ideas and can get you started. Managing risk pays many benefits including the enhancement of Organizational Resilience. This includes improved performance from fewer ‘surprises’. This is the first of 4 posts on
Putting Risk In Its Place Read More »
We all need to assess how well our system is working. It’s a requirement in section 9 of all the new Standards and it’s just a good thing to do for a business. One thing that is often overlooked when putting measurements into place is the effect they have on behaviour. And if you doubt
Are Your Measurements Killing Performance? Read More »
Getting value out of Internal Audits is a constant challenge. Many of our clients found it helpful to change the focus of their audits from ‘Are people following procedures?’ to ‘Find ways to improve our system’. By getting the focus off of ‘Is everyone following our procedures?’ onto ‘Improvement’ two things happen. First, it is
Stop looking for non-conformances! Read More »
This is the final clause in the ‘All you need to know’ series. The series starts here with clause 4: https://simplifyiso.com/all-you-need-to-know-clause-4-0/ Most of what you have in place for Improvement will work just fine here. The jaw dropper is the removal of ‘Preventive Action’. In all my years since 1992 I can honestly say that I
All you need to know – Clause 10: Improvement Read More »
Here’s a VENN diagram we created to get you started down your integration path. You’ll may find this ‘Why Integrate?’ article by Peter Elias Alouche helpful, too: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/case-integrated-management-systems-peter-elias-alouche. Here’s the VENN diagram – click on it to enlarge it: Here’s the link to our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7I1MLs8oH0&t=19s
An integrated management system? Why not? Read More »
Of course we want to measure our performance to know how well we’re doing. In fact, if we don’t measure how things are going, we run the risk of experiencing ‘unplanned results’. Never a good thing, unless the results are better than we had planned for. In order to meet the requirements of this section, we’ll
All you need to know – Clause 9: Performance Evaluation Read More »
Seven changes you may not have noticed in this revision of ISO 9001… One of the exercises we use in our Auditor Training is ‘Where’s Waldo?’ Participants look through the new version of ISO 9001 and try to spot where the Standard has changed. These will be part of your ‘how to..’ information so you know
All you need to know…Operations – Clause 8 of ISO 9001:2015 Read More »
