Here is a question I ask a lot, when I say a lot, I mean at least daily! It's one of my favourite questions when talking with clients and for myself as well! It's one of those questions that really should be one of your key questions as well, are you ready for it because it really is going to change your life, I know sounds like hype right? it's no...

One of the 5 fundamental principles of lean is to obtain flow, find a way that your product or service flows seamlessly from the start of your process to your client and do this as fast as is practicable to maintain a high-quality product or service. There are always many ways to do this and it will vary from organisation to organisation since ever...

If you are a long-term reader of our blog you will know that one of the things that we continually talk about is your organisational values and how you reflect these in everyday operations, how you live those values. So, what has this got to do with Quality? Well, let me ask you how many times do you see Quality in an organisations value list? Thei...

Information has always been a premium resource, it's always been something that has been controlled and guarded to ensure that those who shouldn't have it, don't. If you look back through the ages it's always been there, the Romans had Cursus publicus - which was their courier system, much like today's couriers these were people entr...

I get asked all the time what is the point of lean? Why would you 'do lean'? It's actually a pretty common question and there are many many answers that people give when they are asked about it. The problem is, I think, that people forget the real reason for introducing lean to an organisation, the reason it exists in the first place, why Toyota cr...

It was Dan's idea, it can't be wrong, can it? Dan hired that person, they must be Ok, it's everyone else that just need time to adjust. Dan's the leader, so must know all of the answers, doesn't he? Let's be honest, it's possible that Dan is in fact always correct and infallible, it is however unlikely. Before we go on What I if told You that you r...

Unfortunately, Most continuous improvement programs fail, either completely or they fail to live up tot eh hype and expectations that are set up front for them The reason for this is that they are focusing only on delivering the "big bang", they make a big song and dance about this new latest thing and hope that it'll work, like the noise of t...

Understanding exactly what you need to do in order to achieve ISO9001:2015 can be a bit of a challenge. Sometimes the language in the standard can be a little, well, unclear. Don't get me wrong the 2015 version of the ISO9001 standard is vastly improved over the previous versions of the standard but unless you are familiar with ISO standards a...

When an organisation makes the decision that they need to achieve the ISO9001:2015 certification there are normally a number of factors that influence the decision, because let's face it, it's not a small decision, it's one that really needs to be considered carefully since you are about to fundamentally change how your organisation functions. The ...

We all have habits; they build up over time and whether we like them or not form a large part of who we are and how we go about doing things. Before we leave the house, we check our pockets for the keys and wallet, and we know where the keys are because out of habit, we put them in the same place when we come in, the bowl by the phone or the hook a...

Last week I was involved in a conversation with a person I met at a networking event where we were discussing problems they were having at their workplace with people not following processes. They asked me what I thought they should do to get people to follow the processes and stem the flow of issues. "How Do I get these people to just do what they...

One of the great things about doing online surveys is that you can get completely honest feedback from people about virtually anything. One of the downsides of course of doing surveys is that you have to collate the data afterwards which normally means figuring out how to download it from the survey system and then get it into a spreadsheet. Once t...

You have done it, the ISO9001:2015 certificate is on the wall and all that hard work of building a Quality Management System that really delivers for your organisation is behind you, so why are we talking about a journey?   Celebrate Firstly, it is important to stop for a moment and celebrate what you and the team have achieved. It says a lot ...

Congratulations, you have got to the point where it is time for the stage 2 audit of your new ISO9001:2015 certification audit of your Quality Management System. You have spent many hours training all of your team on what the requirements are for running the organisation within your new system, people know where to find things, they are updati...

How do you measure success? Is it money? Is it fame or influence is it the ability to do what ever you want or is it something else? I'd like to argue that it is none of these, you may end up with one or all of these things of course, but is that really the way to think about it? When you think about family, friends, you think if the many memories ...

It's finally time, you have done all the hard yards and now it's time to actually get your new ISO9001:2015 system officially certified, so what exactly does that mean and how do you do it, there are a few steps to move through to get to that all important ISO9001:2015 certificate. In this post we will cover the 1st two steps.   Selecting a Ce...

As we have worked through all of the clauses within ISO9001 in this blog series we have highlighted a number of areas where you need a document or need to be keeping a record of things, but to be fair, it may be hard to keep track and to be honest with so many clauses it can be a little overwhelming. It's not unusual for people to believe that abso...

A month ago I caught up with some friends for a drink and a chat to set the worlds to rights. I should explain that means we had a really good chat about everything that was bugging us and shared our various opinions on how to go about fixing it. Back home in Scotland, it's a great pastime, in part I think as a way of venting and letting off steam ...