The Top Quality Questions

Phillip,

Good to hear from you. Go here for some training guidance:
https://www.qualitydigest.com/may01/html/iso9000.html
There are also lost of good training threads in the Cove.
This doesn't directly address your question about the connection of corrective action to management review, but lots of other Cove threads do:
https://www.qualitydigest.com/sept02/articles/02_article.shtml
I defer to the terrific guidance provided by the experts here in the Cove.

Roxane,

What, you're not a Southen Belle?!? I think you're excellent material for this esteemed role! Throwing a tantrum is the primary qualification! If you've got this covered, then you're ready. As for this list, I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. I would like to refine it a bit more. Some of the questions are a little fuzzy and unanswerable. But it's fun to come up with lists like this. Ultimately it would be very interesting to try to tackle a list of questions of this sort. A big project, though...

Hershal,

Speaking of refining the list, you've definitely added some interesting angles for calibration. The great thing about calibration is that the questions never end. You nailed 3 or 4 really good questions that I'm going to add. Thanks a lot!

Craig

Craig:

I suppose we have to ask the most obvious question, since I don't think I saw it on the list.

What is quality?

Or perhaps these questions --

What's the difference between a requirement and an expectation?
If I meet my customer's requirements, isn't this all the ISO standard requires?


........insomnia gets one thinking some strange thoughts..................

--QG

Goddess,

Ooooh, I can't believe we didn't think of the "What is quality" angle. That's a great one.

I also love your "What's the difference between a requirement and an expectation?" That feeds into a lot of other topics: auditing, customer satisfaction.

Hooray for insomnia...!

Thanks a bunch,
Craig

Next.....when will you start compiling answers?

I'll help with the calibration ones......

Hershal

Craig

Maybe not in the top 100, but I have been intrigued by these for years …

ISO9000 SERIES

* Why does ISO9000:2000 talk of internal (as well as external) customers but all reference to “customer” in ISO9001:2000 only relates to an external one?

* Why does ISO9001:2000 say that we must have a Quality Manual?

* Can we rely on a customer to tell us what they really think of our goods or services, or might we get different answers at different intervals after delivery, and from different people within the customer organisation?

* Why did ISO9001:2000 introduce the term “product realisation” when no-one ever used it before and we have yet to see any job advert for a “Product Realisation Operative”?

* How can we “enhance customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements” - surely we are just “ensuring” satisfaction by meeting their requirements, and would need to do something extra to enhance satisfaction?

* Which definition of a “process” should we use – the one in ISO9000:2000 or in ISO9001:2000?

* And anyway, why does the definition not recognise that a business process must have a trigger (to get it started) and an objective (to make sense of its performance)?

* How do I “apply a system of processes within an organisation” – are the process not there already?

* Am I the only person in the world who doesn’t see any point to the “model of a process based management system shown in Figure 1” of ISO9001:2000 (“Model of a process-based quality management system”)?

* Why does the model show a two-way information flow between customers and “Management responsibility” when Section 4 (Management responsibility) makes no suggestion that top management communicates with customers?

* Why is there only a link shown from “Management responsibility” into “Resource Management”, when the requirements stated under “Management responsibility” have an equal if not greater impact on “Product realisation” and on “Measurement, analysis and improvement”?

* Would it make more sense if “Management responsibility” was the label on the big circle in the background, and the top box was “Planning and Organising”?

* Why are “Customer requirements” described as a “value-adding activity” when they are not an activity at all, never mind one that adds value?

* Why are there only two information flows shown, and only “to” and “from” customers, when internal communication is equally important (as the standard rightly states elsewhere)?

* Why are we told that the term “product” applies only to the product intended for or required by a customer” when Section 7.4.1 says that it is (also) something that the organisation receives from a supplier, and when ISO9000:2000 says that a product is “the output from a (ie any) process”?

* Do you know anyone who believes that a “driver’s manual” or a “dictionary” is “software”?

* Why are “quality management processes” supposed to be separate from” product realization processes”?

Maybe under Quality Principles -

Why isn't "good enough" good enough?

Hershal,

Thanks for your offer. You strike me as a guy who knows his calibration stuff inside and out. It's been a few years since I pulled out the ol' gauge blocks, so I'll be taking you up on that offer.

Thanks again,
Craig

Peter,

What a great list. These are what I would call "deep thinker questions." Clearly you've been just as puzzled about some parts of ISO 9001 as I have.

Why don't you select some of these and open threads within the ISO 9001 forum? I think you would get a fascinating range of responses. Most of these don't have any absolute answer (not in my opinion, anyway), so it would be a fine and lively discussion.

Thanks again for your great ideas.

Craig

Bill,

Another deep, philosophical question that gets to the heart of management systems and customer satisfaction...and the whole reason most of us are working in this field in the first place. Great thinking!

Craig

ccochran said:

Peter,

What a great list. These are what I would call "deep thinker questions." Clearly you've been just as puzzled about some parts of ISO 9001 as I have.

Why don't you select some of these and open threads within the ISO 9001 forum? I think you would get a fascinating range of responses. Most of these don't have any absolute answer (not in my opinion, anyway), so it would be a fine and lively discussion.

Thanks again for your great ideas.

Craig

Click to expand...

Craig

Do you not reckon that most folk who have read ISO9001:2000 would have asked themselves the same questions when they tried to work out what it meant for their own organisations? I have hinted at some of my concerns in other posts, but there hasn't been much response. Although I don't expect to have much time over the next few weeks to get involved in a discussion, I might just post something to see what it generates.

By the way, I agree that there are few absolute answers - but I wish that folk would ask a few more questions - just because something is "ISO" doesn't mean that it is best practice (or even well-written)!