THE FUTURE OF ISO 9001

By :  Yasuhiko Yoneto

Yasuhiko Yoneto discusses the Japanese view of ISO 9001 and his suggestions for the revised version of the standard in 2015

When ISO 9000 was first published in 1987, many Japanese companies showed a strong resistance to the requirements of western-style documentation. ISO 9001:2000 was expected to breathe new life into Japanese companies that were suffering from the collapse of the bubble economy, and to help restore their competitiveness. However, we found out that the quality management system on its own was not enough to strengthen the economic results of Japanese companies' operations. The revision in 2008 was not a full-scale one and there were only minor modifications. With this in mind, from a personal point of view, expectations are high for the revised version of ISO 9001 (expected to be released in 2015).

Today, you would be hard pressed to find an organisation that is unaffected by the wave of globalisation.  It is now common to procure materials, components for products, and even services, from abroad. For example, a company in the US might be continuously carrying out around-the-clock development work on computer software in collaboration with an Indian company. Despite this situation, the only wording that reflects this in the current version of the standard is "evaluation of suppliers". So it is difficult to say that the standard places enough emphasis on the management of suppliers. Many companies have responded by creating a supplier qualification process using their own rating criteria, such as supply capability and quality control level. There has been a host of challenges for international supply chains recently, which demonstrate the need for supply chains to be strengthened. It's therefore desirable that a clear statement about the requirement for supplier evaluation is made in the revised ISO 9001 standard, addressing the presence or absence of supply chain management and need for periodical second-party auditing.

According to a recent ISO survey on the relationship between financial results and the concept of zero defects, a financial disadvantage can surface when the management system for the manufacturing process aims to achieve a zero-defect product infinitely through the principle of 'quality first'. The survey also found that many companies are seeking economic benefits through the utilisation of the ISO 9001 quality management system. In Japan it is not as prevalent as the rest of the world, but some companies do seek third-party certification of their management system for the sole purpose of increasing their commercial advantage. This is a particularly strong pattern among small and medium-sized companies. To avoid such improper trends, one option for the revised ISO 9001 standard would be that 'management review' requires organisations to discuss investment efficiency as well as cost reduction.

Due to advances in information technology, it's become common practice for management systems and various documents to be digitalised. This practice encourages the internal sharing of various documents so that they can be facilitated at every level of an organisation. Today, many organisations use information technology to strengthen their internal communications and share knowledge of customer information and personal experiences. However, the current international standard does not specifically mention the utilisation of information technology, other than referring to "documents containing digital data". An active utilisation of information technology could be encouraged in the standard, by adding a requirement regarding documentation.

The difference between corrective and preventive actions is not so clear, although these are major requirements in the current international standard. Not only that, but the requirement for preventive action cannot be described as a proactive approach, but rather a reactive approach. In addition, 'preventive action' is often synonymous with risk assessment, hence it has to be positioned at the 'plan' stage in Deming's plan-do-check-act cycle. Very fortunately, the newly proposed high level structure for international standards follows this direction and emphasises risk management in the planning stage as a part of the management system. The risk-based approach adopted for another standard – PAS 99:2006 – might be one of options to encourage organisations to carry out a simple risk assessment. Therefore, my final suggestion for the revised ISO 9001 standard is to add a note referring to the risk-based approach of PAS 99.

Yasuhiko Yoneto is a quality commentator, former employee of ExxonMobil Chemical, and former quality improvement engineer in Japan, the US and Singapore

Source :  http://www.irca.org/en-gb/resources/INform/archive/Issue38/opinion/