With the proliferation of companies claiming to conform to the requirements of this international Standard, we might well come to believe that product and service quality has reached its peak and every customer is satisfied with the performance of their ISO9000 registered supplier. On the other hand we could have simply misunderstood the purpose of this Standard and the registration process. Maybe the Standard isn’t about quality of service or product.

The current (year 2000) version of ISO90001 is clearly focussed on the definition of a Quality Management System. This is by convention the mechanism by which an organisation defines and manages the quality of its output delivery. This current document is the latest in a series of ISO Standards devoted to the topic, and shortly to be replaced by a 2008 version - but not just yet. These Standards can trace their direct history back to the middle of the last century, these having antecedents with origins certainly back to the early 20th Century.

Originating within the manufacturing industry, and until comparatively recently predominantly focussed there, their original objective was to control the manufacturing processes so as to correct the errors endemic within the ethos of working class operatives. It was a ‘given’ that product (and now service) errors occurred due to the nature and attitudes of the workers employed. Seldom was it considered possible that errors and omissions - i.e. defects, could be related to the management or management methods employed within the industry. Standards were therefore developed with the sole purpose of identifying and correcting failings before they became a problem for the customer, or servicing the customer need for corrective action after delivery. E.g. warrantee. The current ISO 9000 philosophy is founded on the strategy Plan Do Check Act, and for Act we can reasonably say ‘Fix’ - although this isn’t how Act is normally explained in the publicity blurb. Clearly this is an implied acknowledgement of potential failure, rather than a strategy to avoid failure.

For those who doubt this is correct, consider how often you have heard the expression - it must be a Monday morning or Friday afternoon product. Maybe partly in jest, but originating from the concept that workers generally don’t care, and systems have to be devised to put right what they, the workers, do wrong.

As the years have gone by, the Standards have developed and their presentation has changed to a less prescriptive form, but underneath lies the same concept, that all work is prone to error, and management planning must recognise this and act accordingly. The possibility that work of any nature could routinely be performed ‘error free’ has no place within this or any other Standard.

This failure to recognise what is both a major weakness and an opportunity is not confined to Standards makers, but is endemic in much of industry and commerce. A major supplier of domestic kitchen fitments has recently conceded that they have increased the investment in their after sales service operation - in other words, in the rectification processes following a new installation. The possibility that the money could have been spent solving the cause of the problem rather than correcting it does not seem to have been considered. Is it any wonder that organisations continue to believe that the ISO Standards are useful only in the context of enhancing the marketing image of the company?

Earlier in the 20th Century the managers of quality systems became besotted with so-called statistical data gathering and presentation. Based on a lifetime of belief-reinforcing experience that compelled them to believe in the inevitability of error and failure in any work process, they persuaded their masters to support the concept of Acceptable Quality Level (AQL). This term, when used in a truly statistical situation, is a reliable method of predicting the quality of a batch through the examination of a smaller sample. As applied within industry it generally became a justification for accepting the inferior in both service and product delivery. This then has developed into the League Table idiocy driven by government and their civil servants that contains the tacit acceptance of less than perfect work performance, so long as there are those whose performance is deemed inferior to the current product or service examination. League tables are a failure because they support the inevitability of failure. This is a failure to recognise the fact that the present situation arises from a historic perspective of work and culture, along with the absence of the realisation that it doesn’t have to be like it is. To quote a 20th Century Guru - Philip Crosby, ‘It costs no more to do the job right than it costs to do it wrong and then again’. Quality is Free!

So, as we look to the coming of yet another ISO Standard for a quality management system, what are the prospects of a turn-round in philosophy, and a drive for Error-Free working?

Don’t hold your breath!

This ISO Standard contains an element (8) intended to encompass a range of features which together support a mechanism to improve the performance of the management system. Internal audit forms part of this set, but only a part, yet is probably the only element readily recognisable to the average person. Internal audit is significant, not because of the results it delivers but because the ongoing registration process for ISO9001 companies ensures that Internal Audit is subject to regular scrutiny. It is our contention that the impact of internal audit on the average company is minimal to the point of being useless. Primarily this is due not to the concept of audit, but the manner in which it is managed and conducted.

Generalising, quality management processes are tolerated rather than being welcomed. They are part of the cost of doing business, primarily due to the failure of the systems to deliver any tangible benefit beyond the marketing advantage said to arise from the registered status of the organisation. A calm examination of the detailed requirements built into the Standard should provide the assurance that the benefits of a controlled work environment will be achieved by following this text in a manner that matches the specific nature and ethos of the organisation. But it just doesn’t happen. More specifically, it doesn’t happen often enough to provide the evidence of unfailing benefits for the adoption of the standard.

With a Standard that is International in both origin and application, how can this be? To understand this it is necessary to examine the role of those who see their role as one of policing the management system. Often carrying the title of Quality Manager, this individual (sometimes with a team of helpers) is held responsible for the integrity of the documented system and implicitly at least for the quality of the outgoing product or service. Quality Managers have their roots in a manufacturing function whose equivalent would have been the Chief Inspector. The name alone provides an indication of the status - perceived or actual- of this individual. He was unquestionably the final authority regarding the acceptable quality of the company’s product. Acceptance or Rejection was his decision. Without having physically been there, to many of today’s quality managers behave in much the same way. With little real understanding or appreciation of the management function, and certainly not the executive role, they fail to speak the language of their local leaders, with clear consequences.

It is a management responsibility to define company objectives and policies, and management will establish - or have established for them - systems to support these policies and objectives. Their need, although seldom expressed, is for an assurance that the systems are providing the controls and benefits they planned for. They need reassurance. The Internal Audit should provide information specific to the operation of the management system and focussed on this management need, but it seldom works that way. For the most part, the reports of internal audit activity contain a multitude of trivial failings packaged as ‘non-conformance’, frequently to a requirement that is not specified or is imaginary, and having little bearing on the needs of management. Is it surprising that Internal Audit is seen as a necessary evil, conducted to satisfy the ISO auditor, but having little relevance to life in the real world of commerce and industry?

When material such as this is provided to managers who see no real value in the investment, it is not just the audit that is ignored but the perpetrators of the audit also. A direct consequence of this failure to identify the audit customer’s need is a rejection of much that has a Quality Management implication. Managers and quality department staff universally complain of lack of management commitment (an ISO9001 requirement), and a general lack of personal advancement opportunities. But improvement is possible, even radical improvement, and it requires a change in strategy for both Executive Managers and those purporting to be Quality Professionals.

The change process:

1. The organisation must recognise that every manager and employee has a responsibility to perform in accordance with the requirements laid down for their work. Nobody else can be responsible for the quality of this work.

2. The title Quality Managers is clearly not a true indication of the function of this individual. Holding the QM responsible for a failure in product of service is clearly wrong unless that delivery was by its nature part of his (or her) normal function.

3. Internal audits should be a recognisable independent assessment of each business function, carried for the function’s manager and reported to that individual alone. (The functional managers have the responsibility for achieving a selection of business objectives, and it is they who need the information to support these objectives).

4. It follows that the auditors, while being independent of the function being audited, should also understand the role and responsibilities of senior managers, and speak at that level.

5. These changes require the dissolution of the existing audit regime, and some re-education of the management team who are responsible for allowing the adverse situation to exist.

6. Professional auditors with a wider experience than that obtainable within one or a limited number of organisations alone can provide the assurance and service level needed by an effective management team.

A common perception of the requirement ‘continual improvement’ contained within the ISO9001 Standard (8.5.1) is that in some way it relates to an improvement of product or service. Some more serious thought might reveal this to be a misinterpretation, as the document is not a product or service specification, but a system for controlling the quality of the product or service through the output. Title - - ISO9001:2000 Quality management systems - Requirements’. So, in so far as the Standard relates to the organisations’ output, it defines a control and assurance system that should provide a measure of conformance for the outgoing product. The improvement requirement refers to the manner in which this control is affected.

Herein lies the real problem with the ISO9000 series, as it has little to do with management in the normally accepted definition of that word, and certainly nothing to do with business management, which is about efficiency, effectiveness and costs. Pressured into an ISO9000 regime by (in the UK) a government sponsored initiative intended to improve the nation’s international image for quality, organisations large and small adopted the standard and registration in the belief that this alone would enhance their status in the market place. At the beginning this was true, but when competitors were similarly equipped with their registered status certificate, and none of them demonstrably better than the other, buyers returned to their original practice of buying against criteria that did not include ISO9000 registration. Clearly the Continuing Improvement aspect of the document was either a myth, wasn’t being implemented, or didn’t relate to what the customer wanted.

It seems obvious that if a product or service has achieved an acceptable standard of ‘quality’ (whatever that might mean to the purchaser), any further improvement that is to be seen by the purchaser will be in the areas of cost and availability. These are not features that concern the ISO9000 fraternity; however, they do impact on the customer’s perception of that product or service. Logically, they also impact on the task of Sales and Marketing people who have the responsibility of persuading potential customers of the uniqueness and superiority of their product. Here we find the Standard at its weakest and Continuing Improvement a sham.

If an organisation were to adopt a different approach to the management of the business, to the management of Quality if you prefer, and that approach directly addressed the cost of generating and delivering the organisations product or service, THAT would result in improvement, and probably continual improvement.

Why would this be different to the laboriously developed ISO9000 management system? For the simple reason that every top management team understands one language - money. A rationally constituted cost measurement scheme would include ‘error free’ cost estimates, plus actual measurement of costs incurred due to a failure to achieve the error free working. We call this the cost of non-conformance, or perhaps more acceptably ‘Transaction Costs’. If executive managers could be persuaded to abandon ISO9000 theory in favour of the collection of honest cost data such as this, business would - overnight, become more profitable because of the actions they would take - or have taken for them - to rectify the clear overspend found by this approach.

Generally this will not happen. Not due to any difficulty or inability to collect this data, but an inbuilt belief by virtually everyone not familiar with Eastern Cultures that error & failure is an inevitable consequence of human endeavour.

In the meantime, managers and their acolytes continue to hang onto the support strap ISO9000, firm in the belief that a documented system and its certificate will - as with the Wizard of Oz - be an adequate substitute for objective thought.

In every human endeavour there is an element of risk; personal, project or financial, or a combination of them all. The task of the responsible individual is to identify the risk and act accordingly. We all do these ‘risky’ things, almost daily, aware that we are taking a risk. Rather than avoiding risk we become adept at identifying it and having a strategy for dealing with it if the risk materialises. This is what risk management is about, and is a skill that is important in virtually every endeavour.

The popular misconception that risk management is difficult or complicated stems from the bureaucratic methodology of some system-oriented organisations and managers. It is neither complicated or bureaucratic, and need not be. Risk management is basically a simple proposition with a complexity dictated by the nature of the situation to which it applies - usually a project, and the parties involved. In its basic form risk management involves:

1. Identifying risk - Looking for anything that threatens the successful completion of the project against the original requirement. Risks can be environmental, organisational, technical, legal, economic or commercial.

2. Counteracting risk - Taking action to remove or reduce the probability of a risk being realised. The response depends on the nature or seriousness of the risk.

3. Acting when the risk event occurs - Invoking whatever contingency measures were devised for the risk that has materialised.

And for this to happen requires:

4. Monitoring at all stages - This typically means documenting a risk assessment in a profile that identifies the risk, the probability of its occurrence, and the impact if it does materialise. Factors that score highest are those that require the greatest attention and monitoring. A good risk manager will devise contingency plans that reduce either the probability or the impact of these occurrences, and so remove them from the scene.

Working within a formal structured management system similar to that defined by ISO9001 requires the application of risk assessment practices to satisfy the requirements of the Standard. Auditors of such systems may not find specific references to risk management in these areas even though the identification of potential failure (8.5.3) is wholly concerned with a topic that is nothing less than risk management.

Well managed risk taking is a necessary feature of any forward thinking enterprise, since risk is an element of any progression or improvement. It is the adoption of effective risk management in conjunction with the continuing need to drive forward from a comfortable position that leads to progress and advancement. Doing what we always do purely because the risks appear to be negligible or are well known is to be ‘risk averse’, and for progressive organisations cannot be acceptable. Neither is it acceptable to pursue new ideas without an understanding of their potential benefit, proper planning, a clear idea of the threats to these benefits being achieved , and a strategy for dealing with them should they materialise. We need to manage in a manner that is neither predictable or reckless. Risk assessment is an essential tool to support this strategy. We ignore it at our peril…

In an attempt to define an effective set of management processes, ISO 9001:2000 has a section devoted to the management of the contract process. Earlier versions of the Standard (e.g. ISO9001:1994) defined this activity as Contract Review, a clear indication of its nature and purpose. ISO 9001:2000 has located it in a section (7.2.2) “Review of requirements related to the product”. In both cases the intention was to ensure that organisations were able to, and required to, clearly assess the customer requirements prior to entering into a contract, and also to determine their capability to meet those requirements.

But isn’t this obvious? Possibly, and no one is claiming any originality for this inclusion in the Standard. The real question is what led the compilers of the Standard to believe it to be necessary to re-state the obvious. How often as individuals have we been told, “I didn’t know you meant that”, or “Oh, that’s what you meant”? These are clear indications of a supplier’s misunderstanding of the customer requirement, OR a lack of understanding of how to meet the customer requirement, OR simply an inability to meet the requirement; maybe in most cases, a combination of these leads to a customer becoming dissatisfied. Contract Review as we will call it here, is designed to eliminate any misunderstanding of the requirement, while providing an assurance of the supplier’s ability and capability to meet the requirements.

At its simplest, the requirement leads the potential supplier to fully understand the customer’s needs and expectations, while assessing his (the suppliers) ability to adequately meet those needs. This ability isn’t simply confined to the production and delivery of a product or service; it includes provision in a time specific domain and at a cost acceptable to the client. Also, there is an implicit requirement, if not otherwise specified, that the product is fit for purpose, conforms to legislative requirements, and will be supported in an appropriate manner after sale. The Standard requires the potential supplier to verify this prior to the submission of a bid or quote.

Assuming an acceptable bid, the next step would normally be the delivery to the supplier of a contract or purchase order. The Standard requires a review of this document prior to acceptance, to confirm the continued acceptable status of the requirement and the ability of the organisation to meet the demands of the offered contract. This latter element might seem obvious to the point of being unnecessary, but with any organisation there is a great temptation to accept any and all orders, particularly during a general down-turn in business prospects, and to worry about the consequences later. This strategy is not good for either party, so the requirement is for the potential supplier to conduct another review where key aspects of the proffered contract are compared to the organisations ability to deliver to the requirements. These include: - Ensuring that the product (or service) requirements are (adequately) defined. - Any requirements that differ from those previously expressed (the bid invitation and quotation) are resolved. - Confirming that the organisation has the ability to meet the defined requirements.

Most observers of this review requirement would probably agree on the reasonableness of the requirements, and maybe add further detail, but independent audit experience suggests this review is seldom carried out with any rigour, frequently being confined to a cursory assessment by a sales department manager, more concerned with incoming order value than the organisations technical and administrative ability to deliver.

If companies are to improve their image in the market place, and with their customer base, the requirement to seriously review the commitments they are about to make with any new contract is an essential step towards this improvement strategy.

There is an increasing emphasis on the management of environmental factors affecting our personal lives, our community and the world at large. As individuals, it is difficult to see how our contribution can have any effect on the grand scheme of things, but equally, any large scale change comes about as a consequence of numerous small changes. Individual initiatives tend to be focussed more on cash savings than on the general good - no harm in that, but overall, no great benefit either.

At the administrative level, much is being done by government and by local authorities to conserve energy and limit waste, particularly through recycling schemes, and because this has a financial benefit to local authorities through the levy on buried waste, and on individuals through the reduction in energy costs, this will continue for the foreseeable future.

The focus of this article is on the corporate approach to environmental management.

Clearly, the benefits that accrue to individuals through waste reduction and recycling schemes are available to commerce and industry; however, additional benefits can come from an independent recognition of an organisation’s commitment to environmental management. Stockholders have come to recognise that a corporate concern for the environment is good management practice, and that this good practice can be a sign of excellence across the organisation. Share price - a measure of management success, is enhanced by this recognition. Share value equals company value.

But what of this independent recognition? How is it achieved and at what cost, and are the costs really matched by the benefits?

Organisations large and small have adopted the ISO9001 Quality Management Standard as a mechanism to demonstrate in some way their concern for customer and stakeholder interests. Few companies of significance now operate outside the ISO9001 registration scheme, and while some might argue that ISO9001 has not materially affected their business performance, a large proportion claim to hold on to their registration simply because the market believes differently.

Whatever the real truth may be, this one fact is clear; companies holding an ISO9001 registration are well on the way to being qualified for ISO14001 (Environmental Management System) registration if the implementation is carried out efficiently and effectively.

ISO14001 appears to be similar to its companion Standard (ISO9001), but in detail its requirements are structured with a different emphasis. While the 9001 document appears to demand certain attributes and actions, its companion, in essence, requires only that the organisation develops a working program to move towards a series of environmental improvements, over a time scale agreed amongst the interested parties. In this way environmental improvement is a steady improvement process structured to suit the ability of the organisation to achieve its goals. This steady improvement is in opposition to the ISO9001 structure that demands compliance from the outset.

ISO14001 has a number of documentation and operational requirements, the ‘housekeeping requirements ‘aimed at managing and monitoring the improvement in environmental performance that already exist within the Quality Management System, requiring comparatively little adjustment to fit into an integrated management system. Integrating the Environmental aspects of ISO 14001 into an existing ISO9001 Quality Management System should therefore be a straightforward task, dependant only on the manner in which the original documentation was assembled. The application of these Standards can be a straightforward matter, however, only when there is a clear understanding of the intent, as opposed to the letter, of each requirement, with effort being applied to minimising the bureaucracy of the application. Unfortunately, the reverse was often true during the early days of ISO9001 implementation, with the quality of the application task being measured by the quantity of documents produced.

For achieving maximum benefit from a Dual Standard management system, a review of the original documentation followed by a rationalisation exercise is the ideal route. Having reached a stable and acceptable system, compliant with the Quality Management Standard, the development of an integrated system combining the Standard for Quality and Environment is comparatively straightforward.

Organisations determined to adopt this route should beware of consultants offering to carry out the task for the traditional ‘Daily Rate’ compensation. That method of payment for services leads inevitably to overpayment, due either to greed or a lack of understanding on the part of the contractor.

Following the development of a management system for Quality - e.g. ISO9001′ is the need to maintain and improve the performance of such a system. ISO 9001 in its current form requires the organisation to continually improve, and for auditors and managers alike this improvement requirement has been difficult to define and therefore to demonstrate.

Independent of any registration process, it would be generally accepted that an improvement in the management system could only be evidenced through improvement in the processes and outputs of the business. Internally this might show as reductions in costs due to reduced waste, faster cycle times etc. But these improvements don’t happen by chance, or if they do, they are susceptible to reversion. Improvement requires positive action based on reliable information and sound judgement, followed by the application of a defined and controlled process. It is here that we bring together the two terms of our heading.

A web search for Zero Defects will reveal a multitude of entries from Six Sigma exponents vilifying the ZD concept as impractical and even ineffective in the search for significant improvement. The fact that many of these folk lack any personal experience through involvement in management improvement seems not to bother them. Frequent references to Phil Crosby’s ‘Zero Defects’ and ‘Quality is Free’ statements appear to be the result of hearsay rather than any careful study.

I don’t think I need to defend Crosby or his record - which stands alone. However, there is some value in re-stating both the theory and reality of the ZD and Free Quality concepts.

The sequence starts with a definition of quality - Conformance to Requirements was the earliest iteration, and this seems a good start. For most organisations there is either a statement of requirements that is achievable, or there is no adequate statement of requirements, and that is clearly the route to disaster. However, such a situation is not unknown, comments such as ‘the customer doesn’t know what he wants’ are not infrequently used to explain how a major piece of work has got underway without a clear definition of requirements.

Having achieved a satisfactory and adequate definition that all parties have signed up to, we now consider what performance standard we are committed to. Crosby’s definition of performance standard was Zero Defects. We will strive always to achieve a fault-free performance. How can anyone dispute this as a reasonable objective, and yet they do. To quote Robert Galvin, under whose direction the Motorola Company initiated the first Six Sigma program, “Perfection is our final objective”. Not just zero defects for Motorola, but perfection.

The anti-ZD brigade call up their Six Sigma argument to show that as they have difficulty achieving their objective, ZD must be a fiction, a motivational program they say, and clearly too expensive to be a realistic objective. What is usually missing from this is an understanding of the nature of ZD. Unlike Six Sigma, it is not a tool or set of tools, it is a performance standard. It is in fact the performance standard we personally set for ourselves each day. We don’t accept defects in our salary statement, or payments to the bank. We object to errors in change at the shop. We particularly reject food that fails to meet our requirements, every time!

So Zero Defects is a performance standard applicable to every situation, to advance on Crosby’s explanation, would we really settle for a less than perfection performance standard at our local hospital if we or our close family were the recipients of the treatment?

Zero Defects is the performance standard we need to embrace, while anything less tells us, our associates, and the world at large that Quality (conformance to requirements) is simply a slogan with no depth of meaning.

Wherever the ISO9001 Standard is discussed, the one certain item will be that of Improvement. Most often considered is the Continual Improvement requirement of the ISO Standard (section 8 ) or possible improvements to the Standard itself. This latter particularly at the present time as we await the publication of ISO9001:2008.

Seldom heard is any discussion on the fundamentals of Quality Management as it is determined by individual organisations, both within and without the ISO 9001 registration scheme. It is this that is discussed within this short article.

Since the earliest days of structured Quality Management Systems it has been an established practice to appoint a Head of Quality function, normally but not always as a ‘Quality Manager’. The proposition to be made here is that this post is both unnecessary and frequently an encumbrance to effective management.

Unnecessary because the requirements for ISO registration do not demand it, and because at both the individual and functional level this appointee does not in any real way manage Quality. Manufacturing managers, accountants, sales and marketing managers etc, are individually and collectively responsible for the quality of their management and delivery of the outputs of their function. At the time of individual or corporate performance assessment there is no escape from this responsibility. Certainly the quality management is not renowned for accepting responsibility for any deficiency in the quality of performance at that time!

An encumbrance because despite this lack of accountability for functional department performance, quality managers through the activities of their staff occupy a position of control, invariably negative, that takes from accountable staff the authority to exercise the necessary authority in furtherance of departmental business objectives. A classic example of this can be seen across every industry in the management of supplier selection. Typically purchases in support of product development or production require the selection of one or more suppliers. Purchasing agents are mandated to select suppliers and agree terms for supply of the required product or service, and are judged - and sometimes remunerated - against their performance achievement. However, their selection of a supply source is commonly governed by a requirement to have a selected supplier ‘assessed’ by the Quality function(a.k.a. the Quality Manager) to determine suitability. This determination is frequently an unproductive exercise, with no measurable benefit, that results in significant additional costs and delays that could be avoided. The outcome of this appraisal process is often the rejection of the proposed supplier by people with no responsibility or accountability for their decision. Similar situations exist internal to the organisation in the area of deviation control (concessions) and internal audit. The overriding issue is that responsibility for decision making has been largely taken from those who will be held accountable for the decision, and given to those ill equipped to make the decision and with no responsibility for the outcome.

The proposed solution to this management structure weakness is to re-allocate existing QA staff to those managers and departments utilising the services provided. For example, in this scenario vendor assessments would be performed at the behest of the procurement function, which would manage the staff and alone be responsible for determining actions consequential to the assessment. This arrangement is then to be repeated across the organisation wherever QA staff are utilised and could be re-located.

The previous Quality Department would at that point cease to exist. To satisfy the real need for some central documentation management, and to act as a central resource for internal audit of the management system, the post of System Integrity manager/controller could be established, with a clear responsibility for reporting on the integrity and continued applicability of any documented management system, with perhaps an ongoing responsibility for representing the system status to visiting auditors and customers.

There remains the question of providing an effective internal quality system audit. This is a difficult issue even in a well resourced enterprise, due to conflicting calls on the available staff. The only satisfactory solution to this is the outsourcing of the internal audit task, and maybe the entire system integrity responsibility. By so doing the audit requirement is satisfied, delivered on time, by professional auditors, and at a cost that in real terms is less than that of using occasional internal auditors.

There are no obvious disadvantages here to this proposed change. Managers with responsibility for any aspect of quality (and don’t they all have this) will have the resources and authority to deliver on that responsibility. Displaced QA staff will be located closer to the need for their services, and can be seen to deliver value or move on. The new position of System Integrity manager could be a development post with high visibility for any suitable candidate with a potential for higher office, while an outsourced internal audit should bring an improved focus on business needs rather than the more usual nit-picking comments on minor breaches of procedure, as that is the norm for so many audit reports.

One doesn’t have to be around for more than a decade or so to witness the apparent rise and fall of several management schemes (some say fads) intended to change the world, or at least the confined world of the operation in which you function.  To start the sequence we had Quality Circles, supposedly to introduce participative management to organisations with a rigid management hierarchy, followed by Total Quality Management (TQM) that committed everyone to a process approach to quality improvement, and then Six Sigma, an expensive upgrade to TQM that relied on a massive training process with grades of operatives having allegiance to an eastern wrestling culture.  Implementation of this latter scheme would require significant improvements just to pay for the ‘training’.

Looking back over the years, the successful programs have been comparatively few, if we judge success by the benefits and the longevity of the program. Management has been told to ‘do this and all your problems will be over’.  Success, no matter how you measure it is yours for the asking, and we will show you how.  Enter the consultant.  Training in one form or the other was mandatory. Teams were the order of the day, with teams anything could happen, and probably did, but improvement - that was a different matter.  If training input was anything to go by, improvement should have been automatic and continuous, but it wasn’t.

A careful study of what was intended, and what was delivered, should lead to the conclusion that performance improvement was both possible and probable, but somehow it just didn’t happen to the majority. Why is that so?

Over time I have reached the conclusion that each of these programs - Crosby called his a Process not a program, has the ingredients that would lead to a successful outcome, if some effort was made to understand what they were about.  As I see it, the problem lies with two groups - business managers and the consultants they employed. Business managers expected something, but weren’t sure what it was, while the consultants had a teaching role, and success for them was in transferring the lessons to the employee subjects. Only infrequently would the managers be willing participants in the training process. But what was being taught?  Maybe the question should be what should have been taught?  With hindsight, the problem is one of understanding.  TQM is a philosophy that must be adapted to the task and people involved at the time. The techniques will therefore change to match the needs of the organisation, its technology and its staff.  By seeing TQM as a set of techniques, more or less set in stone, the program managers, both consultants and corporate managers failed to establish the conditions for success in their programs.  Those whose programs proved to be successful and long lasting have generally been found to have management teams that were serious about the objectives and the management of their   programs, and who established ground-rules for the operation and achievement goals from the outset. The classic example of this is the Motorola Company.  Under the guidance and direction of an informed management, the company moved progressively though a series of improvement objectives, eventually establishing a Six Sigma objective for performance.  Today six sigma has been captured as a program name with objectives totally remote from the original statistical ‘and for Motorola very real - performance objective.

My conclusion therefore is that programs fail because the philosophy has been interpreted as a set of rules, and rules unlike philosophy require a consistency of performance regardless of human cultural and technological differences.

Those of us closely involved with management system development and improvement are frequently consulted on the relative merits of separate rather than integrated systems for these two standards - and of course other combinations.

Avoiding the trap of siding with a particular faction within the organisation posing the question, the logical solution is to integrate the systems from the outset. Much of the required material for the environmental standard already exists as part of the quality management system, and the advantage of having one overall management task is surely a real benefit.

The review status of the two standards at the current time (2008) introduces a possible cause for separating the systems, particularly with regard to the differing emphases on statutory and legal obligations required by the documents.  The forthcoming revision of ISO9001, supposedly more closely aligned with the latest ISO14001, should remove this apparent anomalous condition, but it should be remembered that an organisation is bound by legal requirements regarding the environment, whether or not it adopts the environmental standard.

The cost of developing a new Environmental management system for registration purposes would not be significantly different to the cost of a similar Quality management system, while the cost of adding an environmental aspect to an existing quality system should be considerably less. This is simply because of a similar basic document framework with compatible requirements.  A measure of training would be required, both for management and staff, while any internal auditors might require significant levels of training and mentoring.

There is another economic advantage to combining the two systems - particularly if neither exists from the outset of the project - the opportunity to dispense with the bureaucracy that so frequently results from having a management system with a formal registration, specifically the anomalous Quality Manager appointment.  This post is a throwback to the application of Quality Assurance within manufacturing, when Chief Inspectors became managers of quality, and business continued in the way it always had.  With the introduction of a combined quality and environmental management system the way is clear to dispense with the management post, redistribute responsibilities to those able to deliver results against those responsibilities, and recognize control and development of the management system to be one of Systems Integrity, with little to do with product or service delivery performance.

Outsourcing part or all of this newly defined assignment would result in improved performance at significantly reduced cost.