Category "Improvement"

Waiting until the end of your production cycle to do inspections is a recipe for disaster. By then, it's too late. You have time and money invested by this point and it's important to get a return on your investment. ...

Most of us like variety, but not everyone likes change. What I've discovered over the years is that if I decide that it's going to be different, I call it variety. If you tell me that it's going to be different, I ...

The short answer is, of course, "Never!". Unless we have a proprietary solution to a global problem and no competitors, we always need to be fine tuning our processes to survive in a world of razor thin margins. And we're ...

Errors or non-conformances cost us big time, but most organizations don't realize it. Not only are there hard costs, but there are many hidden costs that add up to reduced profits - logging the issue, containing it, deciding on a ...

We all need to assess how well our system is working. It's a requirement in section 9 of all the new Standards and it's just a good thing to do for a business. One thing that is often overlooked when ...

This topic has been batted around for over 30 years, since the first version of ISO 9001 was released. For organizations that like LOTS of documentation these words open up a whole world of possibilities for mountains of documents. The ...

If you look up the definition for 'communication' you'll see that it involves sending a message then having the sender ensure that the message was received and understood the way the sender intended. 'Sending an e-mail' is NOT 'communication'. It ...

We need to focus on our users when we're designing and improving our management systems. This may seem obvious, but you'd be amazed at how many times a client will ask, "Will the auditor accept this?". Of course we want ...

"What's in it for me?" is a question everybody asks at one time or another. You'd think 'What goes around comes around' would be enough to engage and contribute, but not everyone believes in Karma. So if you feel that ...

Not all of the managers that I've met over the years have been able to actually demonstrate that they are meeting the requirements of the 'Leadership' section of the Standard. On a few occasions I've run a training course and ...