CREATE YOUR OWN SYSTEM - 2

Do-it-yourself?

To do it yourself, you must be the sort of person who is willing to commit a lot of their time studying the requirements of ISO9000, interpreting them for your own organization, writing the system, training the staff, conducting audits and re-writing the system. This process can take several years, and you should be ready for failure at the first assessment conducted by the Quality Registrar. Sorry to sound so negative. You may be the exception, but it's unlikely.

You can do some things to make it easier to do it yourself:

• get some suitable reference materials
• appoint one person to head the project. This person should be a member of the Management Team
• grant that person all of the authority needed to push it through
• familiarise yourself with the standard
• plan your system carefully before you start
• get lots of feedback from the people using the system, at all levels
• Use our services to review your system and advise you. (perhaps a review of your documentation before you start to put it into practice, and an on-site audit after a month or two.

Search the Web, Buy a Book

You can use resources such as this web site to help you. (There aren't many other sites that provide actual help, though).  On this site you will find a lot of useful information.

There are a few example quality manuals and policies available for viewing, but you should be aware that most of these are for previous versions of ISO9001, or else are very "over the top" in content. All in all, there is not a great deal of information to help you on the Web.

There are a number of books for sale which claim to be of use. But so far, all of the books that we have read have been difficult to understand and contain very little that actually guides you through creating your own ISO9000 system.

We used to be asked frequently if we could recommend a good book instead. Ideally, it should have examples and explanations of how to implement an ISO 9001, 14001, 27001, OHSAS18001 system, etc. 

Despite much searching we never found a book that we could recommend. Most of the books that we saw appeared to be complete gibberish at best.

Beware the unaccredited Certification Bodies. There are a growing number of these organisations. They will sell you a quality System (Often mail merged from a generic document, not written specifically for your business, or anything like it). They will then sell you their own certificate. You might as well save your money and print your own for all the good it will do you.

Using a Consultant

This is more expensive, but it is much more likely that you will finish the task, more quickly, provided you can find a good Consultant (there aren't many about!)

I know that you may be thinking "He'll recommend himself, surely?", but I will try to be quite objective about this.

There are a number of reasons why this can be a good idea:

• if you are using in-house staff you will always be able to justify using them to do something else which is perceived as more urgent. This will start as an occasional task and slowly build into a permanent diversion.
• Your own in-house staff will be inhibited from arguing with you when you are wrong. (I am not so shy about it!)
• Your staff will not have as much experience of achieving ISO 9001, 14001, 27001, OHSAS18001 as a dedicated consultant

Points to note:

1. There are good consultants about, but you may have to look quite hard to find them. (or you can save yourself the search and come to us. We're good, I promise!)
2. Beware of people who are able to drop everything and visit you at a moments notice. Why aren't they busy?
3. Be very wary of very low-cost quotes. Horror stories we've heard include consultants who then add in additional charges for travelling or add in extra charges because their quote was for a very limited set of activities and the now "have to do extra work" for you. Cheaper is not often better. Consider the long-term costs.
4. Be very, very, very wary of quotes that include consultancy and certification by the same organisation. These "certificates" are not recognised by national governments (UK, USA, etc). Within the EU, under a recent directive, the activities of such "all in one bodies" are now illegal. Things are moving slowly, but already some of the larger organisations have had to cease these operations.
5. We have offices in many locations and we can supply an expert to assist you, if you wish. We will also be pleased to help you to select a suitable certification body. (No charge, feel free to ask). Our Chief Executive, Terry Russell is the Technical & Standards Advisor to the Federation of Certification Bodies and therefore has excellent contact with UK based certification bodies.

Selecting a Consultant

Whatever you do, don't just grab the first consultant who comes along.

There are a great many persons claiming to be experts in the field who may be next to useless.

Be wary of financial auditors or legal firms who claim to be experienced. They may charge high prices and have little real understanding of the requirements of the standard.

Similarly, be wary of so-called consultants who claim to be expert in a huge range of tasks which just happen to include ISO 9000,.

Be especially wary of those who cannot demonstrate a good track record of successful ISO 9001, 14001, 27001, OHSAS18001 consultancy.

Bottom line: Use us!