60 seconds with Ian Massey
08 July 2015
Ian Massey explains how to ensure your ISO system will help your business do what it does best, better. He also shares how to use an ISO 9001 system to best manage your supply chain.
Name
Ian Massey
Audits against
ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004. AS9100:2009, AS9120:2009, ISO 13485:2012
Most common non-conformance
The majority of our clients employ sub-contractors and/or need to purchase material from suppliers. It’s the control of these suppliers that generate a lot of non-conformances. It’s easy to stick with the same suppliers year-on-year and most do serve our clients very well.But understanding what negative impacts poor suppliers can actually have on your business and then getting data to quantify that poor performance (quality on-time delivery), can really help you pin-point actions to help the supplier improve or if need be, engage with a different supplier. All too often this is not done leading to increased risk to your own deliver/quality performance to your customers.
Greatest client benefit gained from ISO certification
All businesses need to generate and analyse data in order to survive, even if it’s just financial performance data for the tax auditors and investors. What I have seen through assessing various standards over the years, is the advantage our clients get from finding out what makes their core processes work better.Determining ways to measure just how well they processes are working, then getting data that people can analyse, drives new ways to improve processes. Simply ISO certification, amongst a host of other benefits, takes you down this path.
Top tip for getting the most from your management system
Use your management system to help you do what your business does best, it (the management system) serves you - not the other way round!The revised 2015 version of ISO9001, which is due for imminent release, is all about this. It provides a structure and promotes tools, such as risk based management for product and processes, which will help you be resilient to the many and varied issues facing businesses today and in the future.
Most memorable auditing moment
The aerospace sector accounts for the majority of my audits, so I get to see a wide range of components being manufactured from small brackets right up to entire wing assemblies for the rather large A380 aircraft. Standing near to the wing-fuselage join-up section of this aircraft wing during an audit of a client’s fixture installation process, I was astounded at the sheer height of the wing cross section.I could easily stand up straight in it (not that I did as Airbus have strict controls about such things). Medical devices (ISO13485) also reveal interesting experiences such as seeing natural fibres used for wound management products being extracted like nylon from sea weed derived alginate solutions.