QCS International

Now here is where I let you into a little industry secret…Quality Managers, Auditors and Consultants in fact pretty much everyone has an opinion about what preventive action really is but in truth, many people (including Certification Body Auditors) often get it wrong.

Even the Audit Practice Group goes as far as saying that auditors should not lose their way when auditing Section 8.5.3 of ISO 9001 by having a philosophical discussion.   But in truth this often happens.

So what is Preventive Action…

The problem is preventive actions isn’t a separate process or procedure unless you have a defined ‘Risk Management’ process such as Failure Mode Effect Analysis or as in the Medical Device Standard ISO 14971.

The key question to ask yourself here are…

1. What do we do to prevent poor product/service affecting my customer?
2. What do we do to prevent poor product/service affecting my business?
3. How do we learn from things that have gone wrong and stop things from going wrong in the future?

These are not easy questions, but if you can answer the three questions above and define how you handle each situation, then you will have a good understanding of preventive action.

Preventive Action Procedure…

So your Preventive Action Procedure as required by ISO 9001 Section 8.5.3, may infact be included in several procedures rather than the traditional approach to please auditors by having just one documented procedure.

Infact because the ‘procedure for preventive action’ does run across many business processes probably the best place for this documented procedure, is to use your Quality Manual to ‘point’ to other procesess that support preventive action.

In the current economic climate some areas of improvement are being de-prioritised as budgets get tighter.   Most organisations will still support safety as a ‘Number 1 Priority’ – quite right – but what are we doing about the ‘Health’ bit in Health and Safety at Work?

If you need safety shoes and hard hats – no expense spared but how about stress management training, promotion of healthy eating or programmes to help people quit smoking – surly these are all ‘nice to haves’ that only large corporations can afford.

This is precisely why the Department for Work and Pensions has launched the Health Work and Well-being Challenge Fund – a £4million grant scheme to fund innovative projects that improve employees’ health and welfare at work.

Simply put the fund is there to support small and medium sized businesses in health & welfare projects and there is a particular emphasis on promotion of mental well being.

Are you eligible?

Small and medium sized businesses with between 1 and 249 employees, and local partnerships can apply for a grant of between £1,000 and £50,000 in each year. Businesses and organisations must be based and trading in Great Britain and must have been established for at least two years.

How to apply?

The Fund is available over two years with two bidding rounds. Applications for awards in 2010 are now closed but you can apply between September 2010 and December 2010 for awards in 2011.

For further information go to the Department for Work and Pensions website here.

Setting your company/quality objectives is often the focus for organisations at this time of year.   But some times deciding on measures and targets for a process can be difficult.   This is where the KPI Library can be useful…

The KPI library can be found at http://kpilibrary.com/ and is a collection of over 2500 key performance indicators which is more than enough to satisfy any Senior Management Team score cards I have come across.

The KPI Library include measures for Human Resources, Legal Compliance, Sales, Improvement, Purchasing, Quality, Supply Chain, Health & Safety and Environment  to name but a few.

This FREE service but for an additional fee ($99), the web site will also let you bench mark each KPI against your peers so you will get an idea of how good you are.

This web site will help you if you have any kind of issue about monitoring and measuring your processes.   One way we have used this is to take an organisation’s process map and use the KPI library to decide on 2-3 measures per process.   We then summarise this using excel into a monthly score card and decide how and who will collect the data.

The two most important things to do after setting up your score card are:

1. Collect the data but if you find the measure is meaningless after a couple of months stop using it

1. The meaningful data should be regularly reviewed and acted upon – this includes looking at the information and deciding on improvement objectives in your management review

The January sales are upon us and although International Standards don’t generally get marked down in the sales, I thought it would be worth checking out different websites for the cheapest ISO standards available…

I decided to buy a down load copy of ISO 9001:2008 and checked the price at the following on line stores:

BSI (http://shop.bsigroup.com/)

ISO (http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue.htm)

SAI Global (http://infostore.saiglobal.com/store/)

I am sure that you have probably heard of ISO and BSI but SAI Global?   This is a global standard database that looks at standards world wide and gives you the cheapest version available… and a thrifty friend told me this was the cheapest place to get a copy of ISO 9001.

The Results…

1. BSI (Members Only): £40
2. SAI Global: £56.71
3. ISO: £ 71.00
4. BSI (Non Members): £80

BSI were in fact the cheapest although you do have to be a member which costs a minimum of £161 per year.

SAI global were next at £56.71.   If you are not a BSI member, buying from BSI proved to be the most expensive way to buy a standard.

So,  SAI Global provide you with cheap downloads without a membership price tag.

Setting environmental objectives is getting easier by the day.   With Government Initiatives raising overall awareness, even Financial Directors are asking how we can reduce the Carbon Footprint of the company.

Also many organisations have heard of SMART objectives so we now know to make any objective for our system specific, measurable and time bound.

The real problem is that environmental objectives are a bit like a Gym Membership –signed up too hastily in January by everyone and then not re-visited for at least 6 months…

But remember ISO 14001 requires that you have a programme for your objectives including a ‘means and a time frame’.

As we are often setting objectives at this time of year, it is worth getting an effective programme set up at the same time to make sure that all objectives are prioritised and given the right resources to be successful from the start.

Objectives, targets and programmes…

Once you have decided on your ‘SMART’ objective break this down into a brief project plan.   Also make sure that resources in terms of time and money etc are clearly identified as part of the overall programme and that the senior management team in your company has bought into the objective and the programme.   This will make sure that every one really understands what’s involved in achieving an objective and more importantly that the right objectives are given a priority and you don’t fall into the trap of setting too many objectives.

Also make sure that within the programme you have regular reviews/updates to monitor progress and update and amend programmes as you progress your objective.

This may seem like a detailed approach, but failure to have an effective programme for your objectives may well result in non-conformities at your next ISO 14001 audit.