MEET BOB’S MACHINE
Bob’s Machine was operating successfully before ISO 9001 came along.  Bob was introduced to ISO 9001 when it appeared among his largest customer’s supplier requirements.  Although the requirements of ISO 9001 were unclear, the requirement to become ISO 9001 certified needed no clarification.

Bob’s objective became to ‘get certified.’  Unknown to Bob, what the standard requires is a demonstrably effective quality management system (QMS).  To ‘get certified,’ Bob needed to sensibly document the system of processes currently operating to output product.  To Bob, those processes were (in order of appearance): Sales, Purchasing, Receiving, Production, and Shipping. Continue reading →