ISO 9000 is a change in the way everyone in the company thinks and behaves. It is not easy to implement correctly and it is very easy to back slide into the old way of doing things.
Think of ISO as a corporate change to healthy living from a junk-food junky. Ninety-nine percent of people don’t get up off the couch dust off the potato chip crumbs and start running five miles while munching on tofu.
Most people get on the scale and come to the realization they have to make a change. They may start out with a crash diet or they may add a walk to their daily routine, the diet may make a big impact in the short term with disastrous long term results while starting a reasonable exercise program will create gradual improvement your need for long term good health.
The corporate scale is the Cost of Quality report. It measures where there is waste and what it costs to keep control of problems. This is a report you should craft carefully because it is how management is going to measure your success or failure. Understand where the numbers come from, what it takes to collect them, and just how closely it relates to the P&L report. If you can’t find a close correspondence between the two reports, you need to revise the Cost of Quality report.
You need to break management into the idea that you are looking at a 5-10 year plan. Yes there will be measurable improvements in the short term but the real benefit comes from continuously monitoring and improving. You are about to implement Dr. Deming’s, Plan-Do-Check-Act and you better do it right or don’t bother doing anything at all.