Improvement

Supercharge Your Internal Audits!

Internal Auditing has been around since before dirt. Some organizations really do a great job and find improvements – this earns a return the investment. Others do it to make the Registrar happy and could do without the grief. This approach ends up costing them money and is a drain on resources. To supercharge your […]

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Improvement – Our Path to Success!

ISO Clause 10 requires Improvement – in fact, the word improvement appears 24 times in ISO 9001. And we all know that we have to tweak things continually to stay just a bit ahead of the competition. If we’re not getting better, it’s going to feel as if we’re falling behind. Non-conformances are a great

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Are Your Measurements Killing Performance?

Clause 9 requires that we monitor and measure the effectiveness of our management systems. For many, this becomes a chore with little or no valuable information to show for all their work. So if we’re measuring, let’s make sure it’s giving us great info and helping us determine if our system is working. John Seddon

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Smooth Operator – ISO Clause 8

This is the ‘Rubber Hits the Road’ clause, especially for ISO 9001. The EMS and OHS standards both include the ‘Emergency and Preparedness’ in this section – Operations. By using a flowchart to illustrate your workflow you’ll be able to meet the requirements of 4.4.1 a) and b) – show what the processes are, inputs

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Rounding Up Our Resources – ISO Clause 7

To deliver what your customer wants, you need resources! The better you manage them, the more profitable you’ll be. The better motivated your people are, the more resilient your organization will be, even in the Public Service – you’ll be more likely to stay within your budget if you manage your assets and your activities

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SMART Targets…

  Clause 6.2 requires that we set measurable objectives. This helps motivate people – just strap a FitBit to someone’s wrist and watch what happens! Try SMART targets to make things clear to your folks: SpecificMeasurableAttainable (or Action-oriented)RelevantTime Limited Next, don’t set your targets until you know what your processes are capable of. Use CHECK-PLAN-DO

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Are We Out of Context?

In Clause 4 of ISO Standards using the High Level Structure (HLS) you’ll see that we’re required to identify ‘internal issues’, ‘external issues’ and ‘interested parties and their requirements’. What possible value can this bring us? First of all, change the word ‘issues’ to ‘conditions’ or ‘circumstances’ so that the negative association with the word

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Customer Data – Now What??

  The last two posts got us on the road to ‘understanding customers better’. By the time we’ve gathered information on our customers’ perceptions of how well we met their expectations, we could be lost in the weeds. ISO 10004 has some more guidelines on what to do next in Clauses 7.4 and 7.5… 1.

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I Can’t Get No…Customer Satisfaction!!!

Last Post until January 8th, 2020!! ISO 10004 has some ideas for us on how to go about getting a handle on this elusive number. First, there’s a ‘concept’ diagram – a great place to start:   By getting a handle on customers’ expectations, you’ll be able to tell more about how well you’ve satisfied

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The Customer Communication Crisis!

  Without doubt, our customers need to be the focus of our efforts. You’ll find that the word ‘customer’ appears 88 times in ISO 9001:2015. Some of the places it  appears are in the ‘General’ section, Quality Management Principles, the Process Approach, Scope, and these clauses: 4.2 Needs and Expectations of Interested Parties; 4.3 Scope;

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