Presentation
I was motivated to write this article to observe how experienced entrepreneurs as well as excellent professionals are phobic to hear about the ISO 9000 standards because they consider them to be the subject of specialists, but at the same time those entrepreneurs and professionals feel concern and long to implement management systems. of quality in their organizations in order to make them more competitive.
The above arguments being my main motivation, I propose through this article to present in the simplest way possible what I consider the two fundamental pillars to become passionate about ISO 9000 standards and quality management systems:
Fundamental pillars
The first pillar has to do with becoming aware of the benefit that would be obtained by implementing a quality management system in the organization to which we belong.
And secondly, to understand and assimilate the concept of quality from the point of view that is proposed in the ISO 9000 Version 2000 standard.
I will try to get as close as possible to the reality of organizations so that my dissertation can be easy to understand and assimilate.
In an organization, each one of its members is dedicated daily to develop a series of functions that have been entrusted to him, generally becoming a routine and he rarely stops to wonder if these activities are necessary for the organization to achieve its objective When someone tries to take him out of his world and present him with a much more global vision of the organization's problems, he thinks that this is someone else's problem, he almost always loses focus on what is the main objective of the organization he works for or such Once I enter it and it is still not clear to me, and this is the first point to touch to know how it benefits the achievement of the organization's objectives to implement a quality management system.
Every private organization has been created by its owners to obtain income, income that in some cases is called profits in the case of owners and shareholders and in other cases, salaries for the rest of the members of the organization, called workers, administrators., supervisors etc. Highlighting this first point, every private company was created to generate income in money that for some is represented in profits and for others in wages. This income is really the motivational engine of the members of any organization since they allow them in societies like ours to acquire the goods and services necessary for their well-being; so much so that an organization that is not profitable must disappear,From this need of the company to obtain income, a whole chain is generated which we summarize below, the company will obtain the necessary income to the extent that it manages to sell the products it manufactures in the planned quantity, or provide services (for the case of service companies) to a certain number of customers who pay for it. So we have two things, first to obtain income and second to sell products or provide services; But to sell the products it is required that they attract the attention of the potential customer, that is, the product or service must have characteristics that coincide with the customer's requirements, requirements that are ultimately the representation of their needs and expectations.The company will obtain the necessary income to the extent that it manages to sell the products it manufactures in the planned quantity, or to provide services (in the case of service companies) to a certain number of customers who pay for it. So we have two things, first to obtain income and second to sell products or provide services; But to sell the products it is required that they attract the attention of the potential customer, that is, the product or service must have characteristics that coincide with the customer's requirements, requirements that are ultimately the representation of their needs and expectations.The company will obtain the necessary income to the extent that it manages to sell the products it manufactures in the planned quantity, or to provide services (in the case of service companies) to a certain number of customers who pay for it. So we have two things, first to obtain income and second to sell products or provide services; But to sell the products it is required that they attract the attention of the potential customer, that is, the product or service must have characteristics that coincide with the customer's requirements, requirements that are ultimately the representation of their needs and expectations.So we have two things, first to obtain income and second to sell products or provide services; But to sell the products it is required that they attract the attention of the potential customer, that is, the product or service must have characteristics that coincide with the customer's requirements, requirements that are ultimately the representation of their needs and expectations.So we have two things, first to obtain income and second to sell products or provide services; But to sell the products it is required that they attract the attention of the potential customer, that is, the product or service must have characteristics that coincide with the customer's requirements, requirements that are ultimately the representation of their needs and expectations.
Only in this way the customer would pay for the product or service, going from being a potential customer to becoming a real customer.
Let's summarize: For the company to obtain income, it must sell products or provide services and for these to be sold they must have characteristics such that they satisfy the needs and expectations of the client, which is what the standard considers as requirements.
Importance of the plan
But you kind reader may ask yourself, what does the implementation of a quality management system have to do with all of the above?
Well, it is assumed and thus it is theoretically posited that the implementation of the quality management system guarantees the fact or at least a high percentage that the characteristics of the product or service meet the customer's requirements, or what It is the same, satisfy your needs and expectations, then from here the importance of the implementation of the quality management system for any organization is concluded and it is the ideal way to guarantee the percentage of sales necessary for the sustainability of the company.
Having already clarity about the importance for the organization of implementing a quality management system, we move on to the second point of the dissertation and that is the assimilation of the concept of quality, as defined by the ISO 9000 version 2000 standard.
Let us start from the definition of quality as it appears textually in the standard "Degree to which a set of inherent characteristics meets certain requirements" Let us explain this definition in detail, let's start with the term "Set of inherent characteristics" and take a product as a reference, (You, a reader friend, can also take any product as an example) every product or service has a set of characteristics that are inherent to it, which makes it different from others, such as color, size, weight, shape, material from which it is made. etc.
In the case of a service, the characteristics can be kindness in the attention, speed, clear information, etc; These inherent characteristics are those that the company can manipulate, control and modify, they are those real and concrete elements that workers deal with on a daily basis and also those with which the client has contact, that is, they can feel, observe, etc.
The second term to explain is "requirements" which the same standard defines as "Need or Expectation generally implicit or mandatory."
Unlike the characteristics of the product or service that are under the control of the company, the "requirements" depend fundamentally on the client and are the specification or representation of their needs and expectations, so we have, on the one hand, the client with their needs and expectations, that is, with their "requirements," and on the other hand, the company with products or services with certain characteristics, well, the degree to which the inherent characteristics of a product or service "meet" certain requirements (needs and expectations) of the client is what is known as Quality. Thus we can see how quality is not something mysterious or difficult to understand, but something that the organization works with daily,Of course, if the company produces products with characteristics that have nothing to do with the customer's requirements, that is, without taking into account the needs and expectations of the customer, it will be a long way from manufacturing quality products and therefore selling them, But if, on the contrary, it takes the customer's requirements as a basis for the design and manufacture of the product, which must be known in advance, it will be manufacturing products of increasingly better quality and therefore it will attract the attention of the customer who will easily pay for them.takes as a basis for the design and manufacture of the product the customer's requirements which must be known in advance, will be manufacturing products of better quality and therefore will attract the attention of the customer who will easily pay for them.takes as a basis for the design and manufacture of the product the customer's requirements which must be known in advance, will be manufacturing products of better quality and therefore will attract the attention of the customer who will easily pay for them.
conclusion
Finally, we can conclude that the importance of implementing a quality management system lies in the fact that it serves as a platform to develop a series of activities, processes and procedures within the organization, aimed at achieving that the characteristics of the product or service meet the customer's requirements, in a few words they are of quality, which gives us greater possibilities of being acquired by it, thus achieving the percentage of sales planned by the organization.
