Lack of Management Support

Top management must be absolutely, unequivocally committed to the idea that implementing a quality management system will improve the business. If management isn’t sold on the premise, the rank-and-file isn’t going to buy it. ISO 9001 puts it this way:

Top management shall provide evidence of its commitment to:

• Developing and implementing the quality management system; and
• Continually improving the effectiveness of the QMS.

What do you suppose the developers of ISO 9001 meant by “providing evidence of commitment”? A quick e-mail to a select group of individuals, saying “good old Wutsizzname” has been assigned the task? Or, does it go much further than that?

Insufficient Resources

Management has to ensure the availability of resources needed to develop, implement, and maintain the company’s QMS. By resources, ISO 9001 means people, training, equipment, tools, funds, and time. To ensure that there are adequate resources for your QMS, you need SMART objectives and you need a development, implementation, and maintenance plan.

These aren’t separate plans, either. They’re all part of a larger plan. The development, implementation, and maintenance phases of your QMS each have to be planned with the others in mind. Are you familiar with the saying, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts”? Well, nowhere is it truer than your QMS.

So, set your objectives, make your plans, and provide appropriate and sufficient resources. Monitor the progress of the project and adjust as needed.

Or, take a wild guess as to how much and how long it’ll take to develop your QMS. (You might get lucky.)

Poor Communication

For your QMS to conform to ISO 9001, top management has to communicate to the entire organization how important it is to meet customer and regulatory requirements. You didn’t need ISO 9001 to tell you that, did you?

The quality standard also says that “top management shall ensure that responsibilities and authorities are defined and communicated within the organization.” If Wutsizzname is the lead developer of the QMS, he has to be a developer in more than name only. Top management has to be clear about what his responsibilities are and how far his authority extends and should make it clear Wutsizzname is backed by management.

Poor communication isn’t simply a matter of what you say — it’s mostly what you do (or don’t do).

Lack of Customer Involvement

Customers and their satisfaction are the heart and soul of every successful business. And it’s not just external customers that deserve the company’s attention — there are internal customers for every project and process, as well. The ISO process model doesn’t make a distinction — a customer is a customer.

Customers of the QMS include procedure users. Their satisfaction may be measured by how well a procedure is executed, time after time. The best way to ensure customer satisfaction (i.e., consistently outstanding execution) is to involve the users in developing the procedure.

Who would know better than they whether the procedure accurately depicts the process in question? Why wouldn’t you have the users — the process owners and stakeholders — test and validate the procedure before its implementation?

In other words, if you tell Mr. Wutsizzname, “Don’t bother the people in XYZ department with silly questions – just write the procedure“, is the result of that procedure likely to come anywhere near what you expect?

Recapping the seven ways you can make your QMS project a success:

• Have a positive attitude;
• Carefully craft a comprehensive development plan;
• Manage your expectations;
• Ensure the unqualified support of top management;
• Provide sufficient resources to get the project done right;
• Keep the lines of communication open at all times; and
• Involve users/customers in the development process.

Is there anything that I missed? Anything you’d like to add to the list? If your QMS project — or any other major project of yours – didn’t turn out like it was supposed to, what would your experiences tell you to do differently?

I appreciate all your comments. Thanks for your time, and best of luck.

As much as we listen to our customers, we have to translate what we hear into fields on a screen so that software engineers know what to build. Think of it this way: when you say, “I want to easily adapt Bizmanualz procedures for each of my clients”, that could require a bunch of screens.

We have to develop several screens that together enable you to accomplish customization intuitively.  Finally, when you use the screens and say, “Yes, that’s what I was expecting”, your requirement has been met and the loop is closed.

Before we code the screens, we “mock them up” and ask you if you see what you expect, if we’ve included too much, or if we missed something. Here are some tools that help us share mock-ups with you.

Mock-Up Testing Tools

Balsamiq is desktop software that makes it easy to create mock-ups of software screens without having to worry about developing working pages. A marketing guy like me can quickly “draw” pages by dragging and dropping pre-built drop-downs, menus, radio buttons, etc., onto a page. That way, I can show you what I heard you say. I can do this any number of times until you agree that “…that’s what I was expecting!”

Here’s an example:

A simple mock-up contains basic screen functions and regions representing content that you are testing for relevance with users.

For now, you save your Balsamiq page designs onto your local computer, then e-mail them to testers or share them through other online testing tools: soon, Balsamiq is coming out with a really cool online version of their software that will facilitate collaboration within the marketing and development teams and with the customer.

FiveSecondTest is a really easy-to-use online sharing tool for running usability tests of your web screens. You just upload an image of the screen (which you could create in Balsamiq) and submit it for memory or click testing. Testers take the memory test, “recall the five things that you saw on the screen,” or the click test, “buy a book on this page.”

In both types of tests, users perform an action that can be completed within the screen you’re testing and provide you with short written comments explaining their actions.  You can let random people who come to the FiveSecondTest site take your test, or you can send links to testers you’ve selected. In either case, testers can earn “Karma points” on the site that they can spend on their own tests.

If you’re just getting into user  testing, FiveSecondTest is a good tool for sharing and testing simple screen shots.

If you use a Mac, you may want to look at OmniGraffle, a diagramming and charting package. (NOTE: OmniGraffle only runs on Mac, so we can’t use it.) Think of this package as Visio meets Adobe Illustrator. The package has stencils and templates for just about any shape you can imagine, so you can create anything you want. Unlike Balsamiq, it does not appear to be a special-purpose web screen prototyping tool, though it can certainly be used for that. Once you design or import third-party stencils, you can assemble them into web page mock-ups. Though I can’t run OmniGraffle on my PC, I’d sure appreciate your comments if you have any experience with it.

Silverback is another Mac-only application for usability testing. It’s not a web application; instead, it runs on your local computer. Again, because it’s a Mac tool, I can’t speak from personal experience, but I understand it more purely captures actual user behavior while they interact with your web site…which you might want if you’re fulfilling a product or service online and it’s really important that people are happy with the experience, so they don’t go away. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

This package (and others that run on PCs) help you capture screen activity, video record participants’ reactions, record their voices, and export video so that you can gather and compare tests. This is not something that you would do your first time testing online user experience, but something you’d definitely want to do as you need to find incremental improvements.

Like FiveSecondTest, Loop11 is another on-line usability and user testing tool. Beyond testing, it has integrated e-mailing to testers (the “invite” feature) and online reporting of test results. If you’re testing multiple screens or comparing the performance of one screen to another, you definitely want some power behind you. Otherwise, you’ll end up in “Spreadsheet City” as you tabulate and summarize your results.

Loop11 claims to support testing in over 40 languages. If you have some experience with online usability testing and if your business depends on your web site, you need a way to manage tests and keep them organized.  If you’ve ever managed e-mail campaigns, you’ll be familiar with managing your several user tests in Loop11.

Each web page is presented to the user with a question appearing in a banner at the top. Testers try to complete a task on the page presented, then move on through the test, clicking to “complete” or “abandon” each page.

Getting Started

If you’re just getting started, stick with FiveSecondTest or simply mailing screens to customers or posting pages in a “backwater” of your existing web site. Call customers or e-mail them some questions and ask them to accomplish a specific task on your site. Call at least two more customers and ask them to do the same. Make note of any “hiccups”, errors, or misunderstandings that occur, even if it’s only one tester who finds problems. (Put the one tester’s problems before the others and they might just respond, “I hadn’t thought of that. Good point.”)

Write down what you learn and give it to your developer, along with printouts of the screens you tested, highlighting problem areas. That’s it — you completed your first test.

As you get the hang of it and run tests with larger numbers of testers, you can move into a more advanced testing tool like Loop11. You might even conduct the same test with two versions of a given screen (old screen / new screen) and see which version testers prefer.

As always, we appreciate hearing from you. Post a comment below or on our web site. If you have any experience with any of the products mentioned above, we’d really like your input.

That’s when your boss says, “Process? Did I say ‘process’? I meant processezzz! Plural!”  And before you can blurt out, “What do you mean?”, the boss says you need to develop procedures for all accounting processes, not just the one.  Oh, and he wants them by the end of the month!

A weak “Sure, boss…” escapes from your lips as “el jefe” turns and leaves, but an instant later, you’re thinking, “No way!”  You can’t possibly get all your accounting processes documented that quickly!  Or can you?

Break Down the Documentation Process into Its Component Parts

Start by mapping out the business process you need to document.  The process map acts as an outline for your procedure writing: you have to know the steps in the process that need documenting before you start writing.  With process maps in hand — one for each business process — you’re ready to start writing procedures.  Here’s where using pre-written procedures can save you time.

How You Can Use a Pre-Written Procedure to Save Time

If you’re looking for sample accounting procedures for your accounting processes, the Bizmanualz CFO Accounting Policies-Procedures Manuals set contains many sample accounting procedures you can use as starting points.  The CFO bundle contains 239 prewritten accounting procedure templates and 373 accounting forms, organized into five functional areas, or business manuals.  The CFO set covers the ten core accounting cycles.

Once the manuals arrive, the next step is “find an example procedure – a model for the one you need to write”.  All Bizmanualz procedures are in Microsoft Word format and can be easily tailored to fit your specific business process.  Let’s say you’re writing a procedure for vendor acquisition, or the “new vendor” process.  Where would you start?

The vendor process map you wrote shows eight steps:

1. Evaluate business requirements;
2. Identify qualified vendors;
3. Interview, Inspect and test vendor;
4. Review results and approve vendor;
5. Order from vendors;
6. Log orders and delivery performance;
7. Review performance against specifications; and
8. Vendor-related corrective and preventive actions.

Accounting Manual Index

The Accounting Policies, Procedures, and Forms manual contains a Vendor Selection procedure that you can customize.  How do you find it?  In the back of the manual, you’ll find the “Index”.  Search the index for your keyword, “vendor”.  (You could also look through the table of contents in the front of the manual.)  You find the Vendor Selection procedure, containing three steps, or activities (Vendor Selection, Vendor Inspection, and Vendor Files), in the “Purchasing” section.

Your process consists of eight activities, so you expand the prewritten procedure, adding the other five steps, or otherwise modify the Bizmanualz procedure to reflect your actual situation.  Add your process map (a handy visual aid) to the front of the procedure, and you’re done!

Writing a new procedure can take between 4 and 40 hours, depending on the complexity of the process you’re documenting and whether forms are required.  The complexity of a process, as well as your level of expertise in that subject, determines the amount of research — into standards, laws or regulations, references, and the like — you need to do.  Forms also require time and effort to research and produce, assuming you don’t already have them.  The Bizmanualz Vendor Selection procedure contains six pages of forms, including a detailed vendor inspection checklist.  Many Bizmanualz procedures also include a “References” section, which can help you as you research certain topics.

Let’s say this is a 40-hour procedure to create, with forms.  If you use the Bizmanualz procedure, with minor modifications you could have the same procedure ready in less than a day, saving yourself a great deal of time (and your eyes, a lot of wear).  Using a single procedure, saving 38 hours of time off the 40 you planned on, practically pays for the entire five-manual CFO series.

And you’re going to find more than one procedure you can adapt to your business requirements.  Most companies find dozens of useful procedures, which translates to hundreds of hours of time saved, before you factor in the opportunity cost of waiting for the procedures to be completed.

So, the next time you need to write procedures fast, take a look at the complete collection of Bizmanualz business policies and procedures.  Get your procedures project done now…before the end-of-month deadline your boss gave you.

At the heart of your improvement plan should be a strategy.  Rendered maps can help you visually represent that strategy.  You need to paint an attractive picture — show a positive future, show the outcome that people will buy into.

We illustrated a strategy of faster turnaround for aircraft overhauls. It was simple. Workers could easily see how the changes being asked of them would result in good outcomes.

We helped an aircraft overhaul facility, or MRO, cut the time required for major service on aircraft overhauls.  Less time in the shop means operators get their planes back in service faster which, in turn, means they make money instead of spending it.  That helped the aircraft overhaul facility garner a competitive advantage.

We mapped process flows and activities throughout the company; for example, how materials were specified, requisitioned, and tracked.  With our process maps, the client saw how small changes would flow through the system and have a big impact.

Had you asked department managers at the time, they would have told you they were already aware of most of the improvement opportunities that we identified. Certainly, the inefficiencies had been there for years, managers would have said. And point solutions had been identified in some cases.

But the eventual impact of small changes was unclear or unknown, so it was hard for them to justify the time and resources needed to effect change.  So, improvement flagged.

Lighting a fire for change meant we had to change minds.  We illustrated an improvement story that showed certain small changes having a big impact.  Using rendered maps, we illustrated the strategy that was easy to buy into.  We also illustrated a number of systemic improvements that would help sustain the improvements.

Show the Positive Future and Give People a Reason to Change

For example, we selected and illustrated how highly skilled mechanics were spending time and many footsteps getting parts.  Everyone understood that if a wrench doesn’t turn, the plane doesn’t move, and turnaround suffers.

This rendered process map shows mechanics' walk and wait times in the current state. Inefficiency and waste are readily apparent.

In the future state, we instead showed parts being delivered to the mechanics:

In contrast to the current state, the future state is much simpler and, therefore, a marked improvement. As a communications device, it leads workers to ask what is required to achieve and sustain the improvement.

It sounds simple, right?  It was simple, and it tied in with the overall strategy of reducing turnaround.  It made it a great story.  Ultimately, it was the story that had been lacking in the past.

The story, told in rendered maps, helped us get the buy-in that was essential to support the many process changes required to sustain change.  How would the runner know what part to deliver to the mechanic?  When would the  part be delivered?  How would chain of custody be maintained?  Many questions arose that, before, simply froze out improvement, but by telling a story for positive change, the hard work of change became tenable.

By virtue of our illustrating specific improvements, people could see exactly how that lofty strategy translated into their daily work lives.  Our story consisted of sufficient current-state and future-state improvement “concrete steps” and examples to show that improvement was, in fact, possible and exactly how the “positive future” of reduced turnaround time could be achieved.

Telling the Improvement Story Is Part of Your Job

Had we stopped at producing the descriptive maps and left it up to the department heads to structure an improvement program, they surely would have made some incremental improvements in their system.  However, their efforts would have lacked urgency and sustainability.  Change would not have happened fast enough to outpace the industry.  Hungry competitors would not have been overtaken, and no sustainable competitive advantage would have been achieved.

But it was achieved.  As we learned, it’s part of our job as leaders to tell the improvement story. Rendered maps are a tool for telling stories of positive change. Fact-based, tangible, visual stories can illustrate a positive future, and should be in your process mapping toolkit. So, tell the story. Complete the improvement journey. Use a map.

Activity maps display information about the relative worth or value of activities.  They show process steps in columns – activities within each step, or column, are shown.  Activities are color-coded according to the value that customers might derive from them (i.e., are they value-added or non-value-added activities?).  Some activities add value and some do not — those that don’t should be minimized or eliminated.

Assigning a value to activities is, by nature, subjective: we may rationalize our value judgment by attributing it to the customer.  That is shifting the responsibility for the judgment onto the customer, which may ensure that some activities that should be cut are not.

Recapping the Seven Process Map Formats

Let’s recap the maps discussed over the past several weeks.  The following table lists the information each map reveals and the best use for each.  Click on the links for articles and blog posts explaining or applying the highlighted concept:

Moving From Process Observation to Process Improvement

The descriptive process maps help capture the current state.  Activity maps help us collect detailed information about what is occurring.  We use them to reduce the number of steps – we make the process lean.

Convincing others to accept our judgments often requires changing minds, showing people a new way to work.  We move beyond simply describing a process to tell a story, illustrating our point of view.  There are maps that help us do just that; one is the “rendered map”.  In a rendered map, we show enough information to persuade our audience to accept our judgment.

Now, we hear the objection, “Show all the information and let the viewer decide.”  Our objective is to “inform to persuade”.  Everyone has their biases, their own set of filters.  We commonly think of this in relation to news media; however, your relationship to a business process colors your judgment, too.

As an analyst, quality professional, change manager, and executive, your role is to collect and sift through information, form a qualified, professional opinion, and present a compelling case for improvement.

Not having collected and mapped everything you did, your audience doesn’t have the perspective you do.  They know more than you about their specific area, department, or function but you captured key aspects of that in interviews you did.  When the facts are analyzed and the mapping is done, it’s time for you to make your case: convince people to take action in step, in time, and with significant potential impact.

In the next article, we conclude our Process Map series with rendered maps — setting the stage for change.

Document Map

A Document Map is an expanded SIPOC format.  Each row is an individual SIPOC flow representing the:

• Supplier ->
• Input (yellow) ->
• Process Step (light green) ->
• Output (blue) ->
• Customer

Effectiveness criteria and performance objectives are listed at the bottom.  Your effectiveness criteria represent your Key Performance Indicators (KPI), metrics, or measures for your process.  If you are planning on continuous improvement (to conform to ISO 9001) then you should identify your metrics and your performance objectives.

We have also introduced PDCA or Plan, Do, Check, Act structure to the process steps:

• “Plan” is performed as part of the prior “Act” step where credit criteria are determined.
• “Do” occurs when the sales person gets the order and starts entering it in the system, credit checks are performed and terms calculated.
• “Check” occurs when the credit issued is reviewed along with the credit criteria.
• And finally, “Act” occurs when new credit criteria are issued.

Bizmanualz Credit Approval Document Map

Document maps provide a lot of data detail but can be short on activity details.  Text based procedures are much better at depicting individual tasks and methods.  But we can also use an Activity Map.

Activity Map or Value Stream Map

Activity maps or Value Stream Maps are used in lean implementations to depict process tasks as single-piece flow and with as much detail as you can capture.  The whole purpose of an Activity Map is to capture enough information so that you can identify the tasks that are clearly adding value and those that are of questionable value.  Activity maps are helpful for architecting and organizing the text before writing a new procedure.

Each of the five activities in the Credit Approval process (figure 2.) are listed along the top row in light blue.  Next, an optional tally field totals the number of tasks below each activity (i.e. 4+1).  The first number represents the task total and the second number is the lean value-added (green tasks) total.  Then the person or department responsible for the activity is listed with a departmental color code.  And finally, the detailed tasks are shown, one per box.  Value-added tasks are color coded green, clearly wasteful tasks are coded red, and all the white boxes represent possible waste, or steps that can be eliminated through lean process improvement events.

Figure 2: Value Stream Map - Activity Map

Activity maps provide sufficient details for process improvement and can also be augmented with task timing data, which can be used to quantify time and cost savings.  All you need is a spreadsheet and you can start making activity maps.  Unfortunately, activity maps are just OK at training or communicating how a process works. Work flow diagrams are much better for training workers and communicating processes. We will discuss workflow diagrams and rendered process maps next week.

Continued in Part III (Work Flow Diagrams and Rendered Process Maps).

High-Level Process Map

A High-Level Process Map describes all of the core processes within an organization.  For example, ISO 9001 requires that the sequence and interaction of the Quality Management System processes are determined.  One way to demonstrate that processes are “determined” is through a high-level process map.

Figure 1 shows nine core processes that make up the Order-To-Cash Cycle, their sequence and interaction, thus fulfilling the basic ISO 9001 requirement.  The color coded boxes show the three main process flows or cycles in your business:

• Red is your Order Cycle (Purchasing + Production < Sales);
• Blue is your Just-In-Time (JIT) Production Cycle (Shipping = Receiving + Production); and
• Green is your Cash Cycle (Inventory + A/R – Payables > 0); which taken together make up your Order to Cash Cycle.

Inputs/outputs are labeled, information flows are indicated with a dotted line, and the material flow is a solid line (black for inventory and red indicating the primary material flow).  If you need more detail, then each of the nine processes can further be explained separately in a lower-level process map.  The term “process map” does not refer to the scope of a process being high-level, low-level, or very detailed.  A process map is focused on the activity flow, order, or sequence and interaction.

Figure 1: High-level process maps show all core processes within an organization

Low-Level Process Map

The main difference between a high-level and low-level process map is one of scope.  The process flow has not changed, just the scope of what we are looking at.  The Order-To-Cash Cycle has nine processes identified but each process can be further subdivided into sub-processes.  Each sub-process makes up a low-level process map or process flow chart.  A low-level process map is an area of a high-level process map that we have zoomed into for more detail.

For example: the Accounts Receivable (A/R) Cycle is comprised of customer billing, credit, and collections.  If we take a look at just the credit approval portion (Figure 2) of the whole A/R cycle we see that there are five main steps: sales call, order entry, credit check, review A/R balance, and calculate credit terms. There are three UML symbols used: square for process steps, diamond for decisions and an odd looking square with a curved bottom representing data.  Decision diamonds produce an alternative flow that here represents either an “OK” or “Bad Credit” decision, which requires a new sales call to resolve.

Figure 2: Credit Approval Process Flow Chart

Low-level process maps can provide a lot of detail for analysis and can be used in place of textual procedures for simple processes.  If you want to “lean out” your documentation for ISO 9001 then flowcharts can simplify your procedures and reduce unnecessary paperwork.  Organizations with highly trained employees can benefit by using simple process maps.

One problem with low-level process maps is that sometimes it is hard to determine who is responsible for which activity.  Another is that they may not conform very well to the SIPOC format we prefer.  In this case a Cross Functional or “Swim Lanes” Map can be used to convey individual responsibilities or departmental roles within an organization.

Cross Functional or “Swim Lanes” Map

Cross Functional process maps have the same UML flowchart symbols used in the low-level process map example.  Only now, four cross functional swim lanes have been used to identify who is responsible for each element, decision or data.  You can have any number of swim lanes in your map, although as a practical limit you may want to make it fewer than ten for clarity.

In Figure 3, the first band, the customer is clearly responsible for making a “buying” decision and must complete the credit form.  The sales department is the second band and must respond to sales calls, receive the credit information (form), enter the order, and produce an order form.  The order form is sent to the credit department, which compares the data to the credit criteria issued by management.  If everything looks “OK” then credit reviews the customer’s existing A/R balances for credit capacity, and then calculates the credit terms.  Management is responsible for preparing a “credit issued” report and overseeing the credit approval process.

Figure 3: Credit Approval Swim Lanes Map

Swim lanes are really good at depicting responsibilities and with no loss in the low-level process flowchart information.  Suppliers and customers are obvious and it does conform to our SIPOC format.  Although, we still see alternative backflow present in the “bad credit” decision.  The problem with alternative flow is they can make it hard to follow the process.  A better method would be to use “single-piece” flow (the path a single product takes without alternative flows) and eliminate alternative flows such as in a Document Map.  We will present Document and Value Stream maps next week.

Continued in part II.

In summary, a process is a structured set of activities that transform inputs into outputs. We believe processes should be measurable with clear performance indicators. Processes are strategic assets of an organization that if managed well deliver a competitive advantage. And processes assist us in defining responsibilities, internal controls, and work standards for compliance, consistency, and performance.

Process Flows or Activities

A “process map” visually describes the flow of activities of a process. A process flow can be defined as the sequence and interactions of related process steps, activities or tasks that make up an individual process, from beginning to end. A process map is read from left to right or from top to bottom. We prefer to minimize “backflow” or arrows that go from right to left or bottom to top because it can greatly confuse the reader (more on this later).

It helps if a process map identifies a Supplier providing Inputs to a Process, which produces Outputs for a Customer. We call this basic format a SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer) diagram (Figure 1). There are many variations of this SIPOC theme but it does provide a useful framework for understanding the critical elements, sources, and outputs of a process.

Standard symbols are used within a process map to describe key process elements. These symbols come from the Unified Modeling Language or UML, which is an international standard for drawing process maps. There are many symbols that can be used. Figure 2 provides some common UML symbols.

Better Understanding of a Process

Process maps are used to develop a better understanding of a process, to generate ideas for process improvement or stimulate discussion, build stronger communication, and — of course — to document a process. Often times a process map will highlight problems and identify bottlenecks, duplication, delays, or gaps. Process maps can help to clarify process boundaries, process ownership, process responsibilities, and effectiveness measures or process metrics. Process maps can be very effective at increasing process understanding during training.

Process maps are not limited to a single department or function. For example, the ISO 9000 Quality Management Systems standard requires some type of process map of the organization’s quality processes. Mapping should be the first step in designing a process or in documenting a procedure. Why? Because, to improve a process you must understand it and most of us understand a graphical picture better than a written procedure.

Process maps come in many different forms but they all tend to use a SIPOC format and a standard UML for symbols. The most common process map types include: High-Level Process Map, Process Flow Chart, Document Map, Cross Functional or Swim Lanes Process Map, Value Stream Map, Work Flow Diagram, and a Rendered Process Map. Over the next several weeks, we will take a closer look at each of these maps and see how they are used within an organization.

Read Part I (Types of Process Maps)….

Now look at quality in light of behavior change.  What do you design and develop that causes behavior changes.  Certainly that would include teaching methods, but also the curriculum, course length, how the day is structured, homework, grading, extracurricular activities, grade levels, meals served, etc.

Consider a factory that makes a product.  The factory worker uses work instructions, methods, and tools to create the product.  The system the worker uses consists of these very same work instructions, methods, and tools.  Problems or defects with the product produced, as a result of these work instructions, methods, and tools, require changes to the system.  The product is not the work instructions, methods, or tools.  Seems obvious but, how would this work in education?

Let’s take a look at the teacher in a school.  The teacher uses work instructions, methods, and tools to create the product we call learning, just like a factory worker.  If the product produced (learning) has problems or defects (i.e. learning is not occurring as expected) then the teacher must change their work instructions, methods, or tools in order to decrease the defect rate and increase the quality of the product.  Teaching is to a school as working is to a factory.

There was a European study done in 1997 regarding the Application of ISO 9000 Standards to Education and Training.  Although it references the old ISO 9000:1994 standard instead of the current ISO 9001:2008 standard, it is still a worthy interpretation of ISO 9000 for education.

People Don’t Create Defects, Systems Do

People use the system (made up of work instructions, methods, and tools) to create products.  Neither teaching nor working is the product.  They represent the system used to create the product.  The consumers consist of the students, parents, and society whom all consume or benefit from the learning.

The effectiveness of any system is a function of product flow.  Variations and defects obstruct the product flow causing rework, delays, and unsatisfied customers.  The work instructions, methods, and tools need to be aligned to deliver maximum learning at a maximal product flow (progression through the grade levels).  Effectiveness occurs when the two are aligned to produce the highest composite result.

Education quality basics

Purchasing – Think about art supplies, books, equipment, meals, sporting goods, or furniture.  If there are purchasing specifications that are important to learning than those items need to be controlled.  Do you have an obligation to provide safe and healthy meals?  What about sufficient supplies, equipment or furniture for learning?

Production & Service Provisions – Think about the work instructions or teaching procedures to ensure some type of consistency or uniformity.  How are these controlled, revised, distributed, and validated (how do you know they worked?).  Can you trace or track learning (or the lack there of) to a specific teaching method or event?

Customer Property – Think about what kids bring to school: coats, notebooks, books, supplies, etc.  Do you have an obligation to care for their property, provide lockers, or control access?  What do you do if an item is damaged or misplaced?

Control of non-conforming product – A non conformance can be in the teaching methods, student behavior or performance, or purchased items needed for learning.  What do you do with broken furniture, equipment, or lockers?  What is your process for removing it from the learning process so that it does not hinder other students from learning?

Corrective Action – What is the process for monitoring, reviewing, and adjusting the learning system as a result of complaints, comments, or audit findings?  Each incident should be tracked, investigated and resolved.  A good complaint handling process is the best ways to instill a culture of continuous improvement in your organization.

Preventive Action – Do you review your methods and make changes BEFORE you receive complaints?  If you get a complaint your action is corrective, if you fix it before you get a complaint than its preventive.  So what are you doing to prevent complaints?

A class is like a manufacturing cell in a factory.  The batch size is the number of students.  But one class does not make a graduate.  A student must pass through numerous classes or manufacturing cells in order to come out an educated student.  How your students progress through the cells in your facility determines the learning effectiveness of your quality system.

St. Louis, MO – June 18, 2009 – Bizmanualz, Inc., a business publications, training, and consulting company based in St. Louis, MO, today announced the release of the updated ISO 9001 Policies and Procedures Manual. The company has greatly improved its product by modeling its policies and procedures on the Deming (“Plan-Do-Check-Act”) Cycle.

“The updated manual reflects our lean philosophy in multiple ways,” said Christopher Anderson, Managing Director of Bizmanualz. “For example, rather than borrow the text of the standard verbatim in the quality manual, we stripped it to the bare essentials. Putting in a lot of verbiage not required by the standard can make your Quality Manual less user-friendly, less useful, and less likely to be improved.”

The updated ISO 9001 Policies, Procedures & Forms Manual conforms to the ISO 9001:2008 standard, which was updated for the first time in eight years and released in November, 2008. ISO 9001 requirements for procedures and records are clearly identified throughout the updated manual. Recently ISO 9001 certified by using lean principles, the company has used a similar approach in the update process.

“We carried procedures over (from the old to the new ISO 9001 QMS manual) that most organizations consider critical,” said Steve Flick, Bizmanualz Product Director. “Similarly, we removed procedures that customers didn’t consider a high priority, or had little-to-nothing to do with 9001 requirements, or didn’t amount to more than simple work instructions.”

Twenty-three QMS procedures are included in the updated ISO 9001 manual. A forms list at the end of each procedure points out if the filled out form is a “required record” and which ISO 9001 clause requires that record. Bizmanualz redesigned its ISO 9001 QMS manual to help companies easily establish an effective quality management system, as well as to simplify the certification journey for organizations wishing to comply with ISO 9001:2008.

Bizmanualz also offers manuals for Accounting, Finance, Computers & Networks, Sales & Marketing, Human Resources, ISO 22000, Disaster Recovery, and Security. All of Bizmanualz® Policies & Procedures manuals are available via instant download or in hard copy form, with easily editable MS-Word documents included on CD.

Each manual provides prewritten policies, procedures, and forms that enable executives to create and maintain internal controls and implement best practices for all departments in their business.

Bizmanualz® ISO 9001 QMS Policies, Procedures, and Forms: How to Quickly Create an ISO 9001 Quality Management System with easily editable Policies, Procedures, and Forms. (400 pp/trade binder/$495.00) is a Knowledge Management title from Bizmanualz, Inc. It is available through the company’s website, www.bizmanualz.com, or by calling the publisher at 800-466-9953 (outside the USA, call 314-863-5079), faxing your request to 314-863-6571, or by e-mailing sales@bizmanualz.com.