For a lot of companies having crystal clear roles and responsibilities along with clarifying who has authority for what is something which is perhaps not the highest of priorities, which to me seems strange, don't you want your people to know what's going on and who does what? There is sometimes the fear that if you define things too much then...

I don't know how many times I have the conversation or overhear the conversation about wanting to improve throughput in a operation by doing things quicker. Typically it's something like "Lets find that 1 or 2% additional speed and it'll be fine", I cringe every time and here's why, speeding up your operations will not give you the big bang ch...

The quality policy is one of those documents that is ubiquitous to ISO9001, we have all seen them, pinned to noticeboards inside the company handbooks and, if your really lucky, as part of a presentation at your induction. That is, for most, the extent of the involvement with the Quality Policy which is bizarre as it is the fundamental document of ...

It's not news that when you have a bottleneck in your process you have a problem, backlogs build up, sales don't go out on time, customers get frustrated and cash flow starts to suffer. Identifying your bottlenecks and understanding the value of them then is important, so why don't more people pay attention to them? Moreover why isn't more tim...

If you are familiar with the ISO9001:2008 standard you will know that it had a customer focus requirement so the need for it in ISO9001:2015 shouldn't be a surprise and it's similar. So what are the changes and why do you care? Again it is about stressing that top management needs to care about and be focused on the customer, they are responsible f...

Productivity conversations are always interesting conversations, generally they start about being more efficient in the organisation, when what is really meant is I want more out the factory, which is fine. We invariably talk about what has been done so far and how they lead the floor and the example they set themselves. One of my favourite little ...

In ISO9001:2008 we had Management Responsibility, in ISO9001:2015 however we have Leadership as a clause, surely, it's just a simple name change, branding if you like. Actually no, it's quite a deliberate distinction they have made in the standard and it's aimed at engaging more of the company. Previously a company would hire a Quality Manager and ...

What is your vision for your company? Can you talk about it with people in a way they will understand? Will it inspire people in a way that they will want/need to get involved and to help with it? Or will it be a statement on a bit of paper that is framed in your entrance hallway or posters in your canteen that everyone looks at the first time, sha...

Volume is the solution, volume will make you more productive, volume will reduce costs. That's the goal, reduce costs and send more money to the profit line. The more you can spread your set up costs over a larger run (like spreading jam on toast) the cheaper things will be and the more profit you will make. Problem solved.. just make more! Except,...

ISO9001:2015 Clause 4.3 is all about the scope of your Quality Management System, of what parts of your organisation will be included within your Quality Management System, in other words what are the boundaries of the Quality System. By completing ISO9001:2015 Clauses 4.1(Context of the Organisation) , Clause 4.2(Interested parties) ...

ISO 9001:2015 Clause 4.4 is an interesting one, it says that you shall establish, implement, maintain and continually improve a quality management system. It says you should  include the processes needed & their interactions as well, its your job to determine the processes that are needed to meet the standard. It doesn't say anywhere ...

You hear the advice from a huge number of people, hit the big things 1st, focus on the biggest bang for the buck, don't sweat the small stuff. Yet the thing that people forget, it's all small stuff, until it's not! Big stuff starts out as small stuff, then it grows, it feeds waste or lack of accountability or poor company culture and it grows then ...

When you think about a company mission statement what springs to mind? A bunch of buzzwords that create a nondescript marketing pitch that no one really understands or pays much attention to right? If people do pay attention, it's only to laugh at them. Sometimes companies incorrectly toss in a bit about it's long term future as well just for good ...

Clause 4.1 of the ISO9001:2015 standard is a new and can cause a fair bit of confusion, hand wringing and general bewilderment for people, I know when I first read it I thought WHAT THE!? but then I read it again (and again) and did some research and thought, actually I see what they are doing here, that's pretty helpful, I can see how any organisation would benefit from it so here's my take on it, hopefully it helps.

Before we start I want to point I'm not going to be talking about in-depth project management or project office systems, I'm not talking about slippage, work breakdown structures or Gant charts or  Scrum sessions or anything like that. What I am talking about is actually controlling what projects happen in your organisation and why that's...

Clause 4 if the ISO9001:2015 standard is broken into 4 sections in a bid to make it cleared, for the user which are: 4.1 Understanding the Organisation & its Context4.2 Understanding the needs & expectations of interested parties4.3 Determining the scope of the quality management system4.4 quality management system & it's processes Now,...

Can we have a quick chat about your company Purpose? Great, so just tell me what it is … At this point in the conversation one of a few things typically happen:   The individual starts to trip over their words and gives a long string of jargon which doesn't really mean much, and I possibly nod off halfway through.The individual reaches for the...

In our last post we pointed out that skipping the initial sections of the ISO9000 standard is dumb, it's like walking into the movies after the first 30 minutes and hoping you know what's going on so if you haven't read our post on the initial clauses pop back there and have a read, we'll wait.    ISO9000 and The Initial Clauses (the one'...