Re: Re Assurance and Improvement

[GrantBlair@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/6/2000 3:55:46 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
jmegogue@wanadoo.fr writes:

<< ISO 9000 is an administrative quality
 rating system. Deming was against. >>
Interesting discussion so far regarding the proposed changes to ISO 900x. 
However, there is nothing in the ISO standard or the ISO registration 
structure which includes rating or ranking of the ~300,000 registered 
companies.
ISO 9001/2 is a standard. You either conform to it when you are audited , or 
you don't receive a certificate. I like to compare registration to taking a 
test, with the only catch being that the grade MUST BE 100, or the same test 
has to be given again.
This approach differs significantly from earlier supplier audits, which had  
various scoring systems, or from the national quality awards (European, 
Deming, Baldridge, etc.), which are typically scored from 1-1000. Scoring 
leads to ranking, which is indeed a bad situation and leads to many 
misconceptions.
In order to visualize this, take a sheet of paper and draw the following:
1.Draw a horizontal line and label it "Quality Measure". We will assume that 
higher
   is better for our purposes.
2. Draw a Normal distribution curve (bell-curve) on this line.
3. Draw a Vertical line well to the left of the distribution. Label it as 
"ISO registration"
4. Crosshatch the upper right tail of this distribution (1-2%, or so). Label 
this
    as "National Quality Awards".
Label this drawing as "Distribution of ISO-registered companies".
Now, here are the conclusions we can make:
1. Nearly all ISO-registered companies (98-99%) have suboptimal quality as 
compared to NQA companies.
2. Most of the ISO-registered companies have inferior quality (at least 
50%};->.
3. Some ISO-registered companies (2-3%) have exteremely poor quality. 
This exercise illustrates misconceptions which can occur when ranking,
and may also illustrate the fallacy of some of the negative comments regarding
ISO 900x.
Over the holidays, I have been reviewing the proposed ISO 9000:2000 
standards. To me, the most impressive change is more than just addressing 
continual improvement in the standard. What is even more impressive is ISO's 
willingness to "walk the talk" and continually improve through a substantial 
reorganization of the standard.

Grantblair@aol.com
Ninety Six SC
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