Page 55 - The Handbook for Quality Management a Complete Guide to Operational Excellence

42 B u s i n e s s - I n t e g r a t e d Q u a l i t y S y s t e m s A p p r o a c h e s t o Q u a l i t y 43

requirements. This resulted in the development of parallel systems to
meet the varied requirements of their key customers, which was costly,
confusing, and ineffective. While some industry groups, notably in the
aerospace and automotive industries, made progress in coordinating their
requirements, ISO 9000 has greatly improved upon and extended the
scope of acceptable quality systems standards. It now serves as a base for
other industry-specific standards, including TL-9000 (for the telecommu-
nications industry); AS9000 (for aerospace); and ISO/TS 16949:2009 (for
automotive, replacing QS 9000 in the United States).
While ISO 9000 applies to any organization and to all product catego-
ries, it does not specify how the requirements are to be implemented. Also,
the series specify requirements at a very high level; ISO 9000 does not
replace product, safety, or regulatory requirements or standards. The con-
cept that underlies the ISO 9000 standards is that consistently high quality
is best achieved by a combination of technical product specifications and
management system standards. ISO 9000 standards provide only the man-
agement systems standards.
It should be noted that ISO 9000 is designed as a minimal quality standard.
According to A. Blanton Godfrey, who served 10 years on the technical com-
mittee TC176, which developed ISO 9000, the requirements of ISO 9000 rep-
resent a 1970s understanding of quality (Paton, 1995). Godfrey states

… in one way we created a very good minimal standard for companies who were
doing nothing. ISO 9000 gave them a worldwide accepted definition of a quality
system. On the other hand, we did a lot of harm because some people thought it was
a world-class system. And those companies that stopped when they got their cer-
tificate had a rude awakening when they found out that that didn’t mean they were
competitive.
These sentiments are echoed by nearly every quality expert. Stapp (2001)
summarized the following issues with the pre-2000 standards:

1. Not enough emphasis on preventive action. This area has been the
victim of “requirements creep” since the inception of ISO 9001.
The 1987 edition contained little in the way of solid requirements
for a preventive action system. This was addressed by adding
the requirement to the 1994 edition, but organizations could
comply with only a weak system of preventive action.

2. No emphasis on continual improvement. W. Edwards Deming and
other gurus of the quality profession found this to be a funda-
mental weakness in an ISO-compliant quality management sys-
tem. The lack of attention to conti-nual improvement allowed
organizations to comply with the letter of the requirements
without really understanding the purpose of implementing a
quality management system in the first place.

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