Twenty Two Years After the Standard’s Inception, Why are There Companies Still Not ISO 9001 Certified?

Even after many years of hearing the word ISO 9000 and seeing many organizations get ISO certified, there are still companies who are skeptical when it comes to registering for ISO 9001 certification. For some, a misconception on the objectives of the ISO 9001 standard or the lack of knowledge may steer them off this path. For others, it may just be the entry costs and the actual recurrent long-term costs associated with keeping the certification, what stops them from diving in. Whatever your fears may be, allow me to explain the fundamental benefits and try to demonstrate the reason why ISO 9001 is the best management tool that was ever created.

ISO 9001 as a foundation

When you think of how houses are built all over the world, you will find that there are various construction techniques. Whatever the architectural preference or code may be, there is one thing that most houses built to code will have, and that is a FOUNDATION. Without questions, the better the foundation, the better the house will stand the test of time, regardless how many families may pass through its doors.

Here is where ISO 9001 can really help an organization. The first step in the journey of every business towards being a great enterprise should always start with building a sound FOUNDATION and ISO 9001 is just that. ISO 9000 is a standard with a robust set of guidelines that if implemented correctly, will place your company in the right track: the road to success. When a company has a foundation, policies and procedures are established so that the business processes can continue throughout the years. Whether employees move to different jobs, are promoted or new employees are hired, the foundation of the company is preserved through this infrastructure of policies, rules, laws, etc. or better said, through the FOUNDATION.

ISO 9000 as the basis for company culture

Businesses employ people, who learn the company culture and idiosyncrasy and apply it to their own working habits. When the company has no culture, then each person will work using their own habits, whether they are good or bad; and therefore the business itself will be a mix of various habits and ideas without any of them necessarily leading the way of new projects or work. Employees that work in companies that are not ISO 9001 certified typically use their prior experiences and try to apply it to their jobs. Some will yield great result and some won’t, but worse of all, each experience will be different and there won’t be common ground. Without ISO 9001, I have seen employees who work in a very haphazard way, some wanting to set rules but unable to find the system to do it.

The ISO 9001 standard gives you the principles you need in order to have a solid foundation that can become part of your company culture. When applied right, your employees will embrace the ISO 9001 approach and make it part of their business culture. When the owner or top management propagates this culture, is very likely that every employee will be directly or indirectly indoctrinated on this culture. Even when some of these rules are not written or spelled out somewhere, the culture will be transferred from employee to employee. They will no longer feel as if they are in going in different directions, but rather that as if they are working towards the same goals, becoming empowered and more secure of making the right decisions for your business.

A new pride to market

When you become ISO 9001 certified, employees are excited about the new system in place. Not only are they proud of their quality management system, but they feel good at the fact that “opportunity for continual improvement” is now the buzz word, rather than “we made a mistake”. But nobody is more excited than the sales and marketing people, eager to place that “ISO certified” logo in every piece of literature the company has.
Although it may seem oftentimes that Sales and Marketing are the least interested group in getting the company ISO 9001 certified, their behavior changes when it is time to market the new certification. What seemed like a lot of work is now a new tool to gain additional customers, and a new reason of pride to share with existing ones.

Suddenly ISO becomes the center stage, from which to say, “We have a quality management system based on the ISO 9001 standard and we are proud of it.”

World class quality practices for a small fee

ISO 9001 brings proven ideas, techniques and principles from world-class quality companies and gives those as an integrated set of “standards” in order to accomplish a certain level of “quality” in your organization. Imagine if you will have to do your own research and figure out what is the “common denominator” or technique, the “standard” used by other companies in order to be successful. Of course overall success will depend on the kind of business you run and the product or services you may sell, but the common denominator that highly competitive companies used is usually similar.

Large corporations often employ many scholars, researchers and experts, in order to define new processes, solve problems or create new technology for their business. The average business could not afford that and even going on a benchmarking spree seems more suitable to companies with big pockets than the average midsize business. ISO 9001 brings you baseline practices that are considered typical and that are commonly seen in world-class quality companies. You need not be an expert or go research what other companies are doing in order to be successful. All you have to do is look at the ISO 9001 standard and you will find the minimum common denominator.

Although the cost of the standard itself is minimal, the initial cost of certification and recurrent costs required to stay certified can seem large, however when you look at the immediate and long term benefits of becoming certified, then it is easy to see that the benefits outweigh those costs

Summary

If you have been thinking about implementing ISO 9001 and after 22 years you are still unsure about its value, ask yourself, does my company have a FOUNDATION? Are all the employees working toward the same goal? Are our employees proud of our company? Are our competitors ISO 9001 certified? Do we have an edge on our competition?
Chances are you could use the standard to take your company to the next level and into the ranks of world-class quality organizations.

This article was published by Quality Digest on 8/24/2009.

This article was published on the October 2009 edition of the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG)’s Standard and Tools Newsletter.