Instituting a good Business and Quality management program

I am working with small businesses, specifically machine shops in the Mid-Willamette VAlley in Oregon. I an finding these businesess are looking to incorporate the ISO or TQM style of Quality Management program. The question I have is have you intituted a modular apporach to the system rather than a full blown ISO style QMS? Most are willing to begin adopting the concepts but are not equiped to bring a full system on line. Also these are not looking to be registered at this point, but see the advantage of developing into the potential of registry later.

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starstarstarstarstar 		QMS / BMS for small organisations
by: Fin Rooney

There are plenty of books available on ISO9001 for small businesses - in fact, ISO produce one themselves, see: https://www.iso.org/publication/PUB100406.html, but similar books are available on Amazon.
Along with the good suggestions already mentioned, I think if small companies start introducing training on the items below, it will stand them in very good stead:
1. Problem-solving techniques
2. Developing process flowcharts, using the SIPOC approach and looking at the controls and records needed at each process step.
3. Conducting internal audits
4. The concept of zero defects.
5. The concept of the internal supplier and internal customer.
Doing this training among different departments will hopefully introduce good habits as companies develop and expand in the future.
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starstarstarstarstar 		Adopt the Process Approach
by: Raymond Sharkey

An ISO 9001:2015 compliant QMS is dependent on the process approach. I would suggest defining core processes first then work with the most important one. For a manufacturing organization, this would likely be "Production." Determine the process inputs, outputs, risks, and possible performance metrics. Then review the relevant clauses from the standard against the process to determine how necessary requirements are being met and what needs to be controlled, documented, recorded, trained, etc. This will help to establish relations to other internal processes and identify areas in compliance to the standard the are either deficient or unnecessary.
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starstarstarstarstar 		Modular Approach
by: Robert Broughton

I think the modular approach is great. Select the elements that the company needs and can use in daily practice. Work out the kinks and improve on those elements.

If the companies don't need certification then spend your time focusing on the above.
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starstarstarstarstar 		Instititing a good Business and Quality management program
by: Donald Chavi

l agree with Robert on the Modular,however it would be best to target department by department in the implementation process.A fully fledged approach has the danger of too much activities happening at the same time whereby focus could be lost in some instances.
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starstarstarstarstar 		Modular approach to a Business and Quality Management Program
by: Dennis

Thank you for the comments.The approach made sense having watched my former employer struggle with the implementation and buy in with all departments. Fortunately most small businesses have a single department witha a lot of hats, therefore the buy in group is smaller. The other upside is that the customer benefits from the increased efficiency and consistency.
A white paper is in the future. If someone else has utilized the concept I would welcome thier comments.
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starstarstarstarstar 		QUALITY AWARENESS
by: Donald chavi

Congrats on the bold step.Idealy the starting point would be top management,where you need to define Quality and the benefits derived from being quality conscious.Once you have brought top management you cascade the information to lower management then to supervisors lastly to the shop floor level.In the shop floor level you may want to do it department by department in which you want each department to realise their contribution.Finally the whole organisation may want to come togather where a representative from each section right from top to shop floor chronicles the benefits of Quality Awareness.Get individual departments to prepare the Quality procedures and guidelines while top management works on the organisation's vision,mission statement and quality policy and strategy manuals.This sufficiently prepares the organisation for the eventuality of certification
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starstarstarstarstar 		Indirect way
by: Anonymous

Sometimes i have used a indirect way to implement ISO9001 philosophy (NOT papers).

I used Safety Regulations (which is legal = NO questions!) to change mentality from just nosenes- ISO-papers to assure us quality.


Best Regards
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starstarstarstarstar 		Modular approach to a Business and Quality Management Program
by: Dennis

Most of my clients are small maanufacturers with business sizes from one to possibly ten employees. Most of them have determined they need change and thier step forward will enhance thier image to thier customers. Fortunately getting top management to buy in is easy. The biggest hurdle is to get them to commit. Therefore I have been helping them identify the "low hanging fruit," and work with those tools and audit in a few months to see the improvements. I believe with the changes in the economy these small companies will step up. Patience is the game for now!
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starstarstarstarstar 		Getting buy-in
by: SmallBizDave

I've been successful implementing quality systems when I tie it to Lean Manufacturing, which many small manufacturers are familiar with. Start by holding a process improvement kaizen and while you're at it write the new process so it complies with their target standard. When you're done you have a solid, improved process. After two or three of these exercises they start to believe that they can get compliant without adding bureaucracy. I've done ISO and AS9100 systems this way.

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