Business Management System Tools For Today

We will devote this page of the blog to new and inventive ways to manage your business management system. We will discuss software trends and other time saving tools that will make developing and maintaining your quality management system both cost, and time effective.

You are invited to contribute your ideas and knowledge so that everyone may benefit from this blog. All though I am a consultant, I am very serious about working together with all that are interested in driving continuous improvement and the betterment of our community. If everyone who comes here, contributes just one idea, just think what we can do together.

Some small businesses cannot afford six figure consultant fees to help construct a quality management system that complies with the standard, and meets their indiviual needs. This is why these new tools are so improtant and should be shared and discussed openly.

A Time to Improve

Since the goal of ISO certification is to ensure that your company meets standards for quality management systems, your focus should be first and foremost on quality and not the certification itself. Your company should not try to get ISO certified for the sake of being certified, but rather look at it as a way to improve your company’s efficiency and quality processes. Before seeking certification, review your company’s procedures and processes. I dentify disparities between procedures and what is actually done. If what is actually done is more efficient than the written procedure, you should update the written procedure rather than conform to the less-efficient guidelines.

Any good business management system should keep adequate records, and they are essential for ISO certification. One of the required documented procedures is one for controlling records – what identifies every record, how they are stored to protect them, how they are cataloged or organized, how long you keep them, and how you dispose of them. Spend some time reviewing your procedure and examining whether your management follows it; then decide which procedure is the most efficient and appropriate for the nature of each record. This is a time when you can eliminate unnecessary processes, create new ones, identify mishandles processed and make record-keeping more efficient overall. Approaching it from a self-improvement standpoint will be much more effective and pleasant than trying to cover up mistakes that have been made before an ISO audit.

The difference between Corrective and Preventive Action.

Corrective Action is based on a nonconformance event that has happened in the past. Preventive Action is based on preventing a nonconformance event in the future. Both are analogous procedurally, but with the focus as described. Together, Corrective and Preventive Actions—typically referred to as CAPA, are fundamental parts of a continuous improvement program.

Both sub-systems require some type of a log to record each event; a Corrective Action Log and a Preventive Action Log. Each Corrective and Preventive Action will normally have a form that is used to record the details of the activity performed to satisfy the incident; A Corrective Action Request, a Preventive Action Request.

Bothe corrective and preventive action processes are interagul to iso 9001 training programs. The more effective your emplyees are at identifing, correcting and preventing non-conformance the better you bottom line will become.

Non-Conformances Are Good Things

You want everyone to generate them and you want lots of them! Yes you will have to sort through some outlandish stuff, but underneath will be a treasure chest full of continual improvement opportunities that make the organization work more efficiently and cut costs.

You need to get comfortable with the fact that your workers probably know about a lot of the things going wrong in your organization, and that they know about some you don’t. You need to create an environment where they will tell you about them.

And here’s an even more outlandish suggestion Senior Management – they probably know how to fix many of them as well. You need to listen to them by providing an opportunity and method for them to tell you.

Building Positive Customer Relationships

Building positive customer relations means a lot more in today’s global arena. It’s just not good enough to just say "hello" when someone calls or stops by the office. While recognition is a good thing, it doesn't take the place of meeting the customer's expectations. Is your company meeting those expectations?

Customers and prospective customers have higher service expectations today than ever before. When developing a quality management system the quality policy usually states "We strive to meet or exceed our customers’ needs", but do our actions really show that? Do we set ourselves up to fail by not putting the processes in place to actually accomplish what we set out to accomplish “Customer Satisfaction”? The market-and your competition-have educated the business world and the individual consumer to expect more.

The market has changed, it is now a global market, and customers have been educated, often by your competition, to expect and even demand more and faster service, no matter how they define "service." If your company is not aware of these customer expectations, you are likely losing business to others who understand this new customer dynamic.