Joe's Jottings
Jottings Number 66, Reply J, by Bryce Kearey:
Date: Fri, 3 Jan 97 10:26:10 -0800
I have been away from the office for a few weeks, in addition to the
Holiday period and am catching up on my cc:Mail backlog, including
your jottings which are proving to be most thought provoking, as
usual.
I haven't finished my reading yet, but I want to say something in
defence of ISO 9000 however, to do so, I must go back a year in time,
to a most memorable meal I had in Milan.
Now I've had more business dinners than I care to remember, but this
one was different. Before each course, the chef brought the main
ingredients to the table and described them and their origin, before
explaining how he was going to prepare and serve them. I don't speak
Italian but his passion was unmistakable, as was his pride in his
culinary expertise.
We enjoyed the meal and I also enjoyed meeting someone who was so
committed to the communication of his plans and to the satisfaction of
his customers. There was also something else going on, which I shall
return to.
Back to ISO 9000 and QMS. To me they are complementary. They are
languages, developed to express, in a very precise way, a series of
interdependent concepts which are transferable into many domains.
To me ISO 9000 provides a platform on which to work. Its twenty
elements provide standards for; communication, training, records,
error detection and correction, responsibilities and metrics amongst
many more, that just make very good sense. If you were running your
own company, this is the way you would like it to be run. Like
Business Fundamentals it's the discipline, making life just a bit
difficult for us.
In my restaurant example, this represents the culinary skills,
hygiene, menus, pricing, customer voice, etc. If they neglect these
things then standards will slip and customers will go elsewhere.
To me QMS encourages people to shape and develop the products or
processes, which are the objects of their efforts. It enables them to
recognise and maximise their own contribution, satisfying each persons
needs for self expression whilst preserving the overall integrity of
the teams efforts.
In the restaurant, it's the presentation of the food, timing,
quantity, temperature, ambience, quality of service, etc. Again,
neglecting any of these factors and the result will be loss of
customers.
As customers, we can see and taste the food but we have to take the
hygiene, etc. on trust. Not so the health inspectors who will look
"behind the scenes" on our behalf and take any necessary actions.
Our customers use HP Products and take the quality on trust. HP is a
byword for Quality around the world. Not so the ISO 9000 inspectors,
who will audit us on behalf of our customers and an HP "notch" would
be highly prized. If they tell us what we don't want to hear, we've
still got to hear it and then do something about it.
Passion is not everything. It's not worth a light if the product is
flawed. Our standards have to be higher than those of our customers,
those of ISO 9000 and any other standards we claim to meet.
The chef in that restaurant taught me a lot, that evening. It was food
for thought, to coin a phrase.
A Happy and Prosperous 1997 to you and all fellow Jotters.
Bryce Kearey, UK Customer Support.
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ps. I nearly forgot. Just what else was going on? Well I think the
chef was being a tiny bit self indulgent. He needed to be able to
judge for himself, his impact on the business. He would be pretty
confident that no one would say "Hey chef, you're full of s---
again!". If they did, I know who would have the last laugh, and so do
you. Thanks Hudi, Phebe, Grant, Bill, Joe, et al.
Bryce.
nbk
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