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Imperfect Solutions Order: Why organized standards are better than none

A colleague of mine wondered aloud recently whether ISO quality standards are really meaningful or useful in purchasing products or services. My sense, from talking with package purchasing executives, is that the answer is yes, that ISO certification is a real tool in the craft of selecting vendors.

Its detractors are quick to point out how expensive it is, both in time and financial outlay. They also begrudge that it requires a real commitment from management, not just the kind of lip service some companies have shown toward other “quality improvement” programs.

The commitment it requires is probably its main benefit. Remember, it’s third-party audited, unlike many other quality programs relying almost exclusively on the subject company to develop its own “measurements” and then to reliably meet them. Sure, a company in concert with its customers should be able to identify the quality factors that are critical to its products. But, too often, this selection can be a self-fulfilling prophecy: A company’s yardsticks can often be what that company is really good at, and other factors aren’t weighted with high importance.

For example, Statistical Process Control (SPC) has been widely promoted as one method to guarantee the quality of a company’s products. And for what it measures—usually measurable process conditions—it can be very helpful. But what happens when the product moves from the production floor to packaging and warehousing? How good is that company’s order fulfillment? Does it measure the timeliness and quality of delivery? How about after-sale service? All of these factors can be vital to manufacturing quality in a vendor relationship. But they are not usually measurable by SPC instrumentation.

That’s why ISO standards, although less product-specific, can be a far more encompassing guide to customer satisfaction than the detailed charts provided by companies that monitor production via SPC. To be sure, SPC should be a more detailed indication of the process conditions when a product was manufactured. And that can have great value to a company purchasing that product, especially in terms of the level of incoming goods inspection. But it can be of no use if the product is not provided at the time or in the quantity the purchaser or the contract requires.

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