When it comes to becoming ISO certified, many organizations try to take as many exclusions as they can from their scope of certification. I imagine they do this because it reduces the number of audit days, and because the cost of certification is determined by the number of audit days. But I think they also do it because some clauses are seen as producing extra work for them, such as the case of the 7.3 Design and Development and 7.5.4 Validation of Processes for Production or Service Provision (ISO 9001) or A.10.9.1 E-Commerce (ISO 27001).
In the case of our company, Mireaux Management Solutions, which is also trying to get ISO certified, it was quite the opposite. In fact, we wanted to have no exclusions. We wanted to comply with every single requirement of the standards we were getting certified under (ISO 9001 and ISO 27001). But why? Were we crazy? Why would a consulting firm need to comply with maintenance or calibration standards? Why would a consulting firm need to comply with design standards? Below you will find the reason why we are not crazy at all.
Where it all started
A while back, I had a new employee who was hired to create training videos for our enterprise software. She had a master’s degree and an excellent portfolio. As I put her to the task of learning the applications within our software so that she could create the videos, I realized that she was using a lot more in the applications than what she needed for creating videos. In fact, soon she was finding hidden bugs as she was performing tests, and alerting me to them. And much faster than we could act on her comments, she was already suggesting ways to fix them.
Within a month of her start date, she was promoted and became a liaison between our clients and our software developers. She began working with them in order to ensure that any client’s request was reported, implemented, and tested in a timely and efficient way. It was fascinating to see how much she could help the clients and how happy she was every time she discovered simpler ways to take care of their requests. Our clients seem satisfied that they had someone who was good at following up and implementing their requests quickly.
One day after she had solved a problem for a client with our Corrective and Preventive Action system (called CIP), she came to my office and I told her, “You’re doing great. You have learned so much.”
She told me, “I’m so happy. I really enjoy it. I just wish I knew what this is all used for.”
I probably almost turned white. As a small company, we had been hiring new grads. It then became clear to me that although they were smart, they had not worked in an ISO environment, and had not been exposed to the use of procedures, forms, corrective actions, nonconformances , the very things that we consult for. So as I already had a plan for us to become certified, I realized that some training needed to be done, so that newcomers could see for themselves what all these components were and what they were used for.
Not excluding calibration
Our Web QMS has a calibration application, and our employees have become good at its features. But I wanted to make sure they understood what calibration actually means and where each value really comes from.
So I came up with a simple method. We bought a couple of tools we could use in the office: a balance scale and a tape measure. We could use the scale to weigh outgoing training material and the tape measure for any odd measurement we needed to make, such as measuring office space. This was a very small price to pay for tools to be used in such significant training! Everyone was surprised. They were asking what these were for, so I told them we would use the scale and gave ourselves assignments for:
- Writing our calibration procedure (Technical Writer and Tech Support employees)
- Looking for a calibration supplier that could calibrate according to our requirements (Tech Support employee)
- Ensuring that the calibration supplier went through the supplier approval process and was added to Approved Supplier list (Document Control employee)
- Ensuring that the purchase order had all the correct information regarding our requirements (BookKeeper)
- Ensuring that the calibration certificate received met our requirements (Tech Support employee)
- Ensuring that the instruments and certificates would be entered into our Web QMS’s Calibration software (Tech Support employee).
Finally, once all the steps were done, not only would our employees help clients become better, but would also know where the values came from, what terms such as “as found condition” meant, and what the data meant, etc.
Special processes
But how could a consulting firm justify having special processes? We don’t do heat treating, welding, coating. So how could we not exclude this? This was simple too. By analyzing our processes, we realized that not all our employees were ready to answer questions from potential clients regarding our services. At that point, only one or two people could fully do that. Therefore we decided to create a Customer Service qualification process, in which Customer Service was seen as a special process.
With that in mind, we developed a qualification process, whereby all of our associates would have to be qualified at various levels. This qualification process would involve every member of our staff, since Customer Service does not only involve people in the Customer Service department. Sometimes even our technical writers have to answer software questions from the clients they’re helping write procedures. Knowing more about customer service and our products and services will help them and all our employees contribute more fully to our overall client satisfaction goal.
I realized that I could even use this process to know if our associates are qualified (ready) to visit a client, with or without a consultant. It was great to know that I would actually use this process to our benefit, which is what ISO’s intention is, instead of quickly dismissing it as something hard to accomplish, and fail to recognize all the benefits it could bring.
No exclusions make for a better company
The ISO standards don’t present requirements to burden organizations, but to add quality and consistency to a company’s processes, products, and services. The ISO standards are there to ensure that your organization achieves excellence. You can apply those standards to your own processes in varying degrees. But overall, the ISO standards are there to help you achieve the highest degree of process control, whether you are manufacturing widgets or helping other companies become ISO certified. We are practicing what we are preaching here at Mireaux; therefore, having no exclusions means that all our associates will have first-hand knowledge in the very things we consult for.
In the end, who benefits? Our clients of course, but also us. We are a company of individuals, each of whom truly understand ISO. And this has made our own processes all the more efficient.
