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Quality
Management
Documentation Support
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T-21 knows that Quality Management
certification is serious business and demands professional-level work.
ISO-9000®
and other certifications can have many rewards - but require
a great deal of effort. All procedures must meet strict documentation and process standards;
employees must meet rigorous knowledge, training, and performance criteria, as well.
A critical part of
the Certification process is Documentation. A large
amount of written and graphic information is involved, and all of it must be absolutely
accurate, unambiguous, and understood by workers.
Many companies, seeking QM certification, struggle with costly revision after revision.
T-21 can help reduce this burdensome part of the certification
process.
One example follows:
METAL
FABRICATION COMPANY, ISO-9000.
Problem.
A medium-size, Tier-1 metal fabrication company manufactures
custom parts for the aircraft industry and all of their work must be flawless.
When they contacted T-21, they were committed to meeting a customer
requirement to attain ISO-9000®
Certification within sixteen months.
Most of their employees are in
the production division, as the company maintains a lean office
staff. Meeting ISO-9000®
documentation standards, complete with graphics, was a heavy burden.
They interviewed temporary staff to author and edit the documentation, but found
that the few qualified people they found weren't willing to
work on a short-term basis. Since they were not comfortable managing a process, new to
them, the company's CEO contacted T-21 to inquire about
help for their project.
Action. The T-21
Team Manager (TM) took notes as the CEO talked about the project, the amount and type of work needed, as well as the timeline.
The TM and several T-21 Specialists estimated the staff time necessary to meet the company's schedule,
then forwarded the estimates to
him.
The company agreed to proceed with
support fromT-21. Their Team Manager invoked a
QM Documentation Support Team for the project, consisting of:
one Team Leader, two Authors, one Editor, and one
Graphics Specialist.
The company's
ISO® Project Director (PD)
arranged to supply T-21 with the data needed for the project
documentation. Their Team then developed prototype designs for documentation text and
graphics and forwarded them to the company's PD, who reviewed them with their Certification Inspector. Once
the designs were approved, raw data, notes, photographs, and sketches from the
company's PD flowed to T-21.
Their T-21 Team transformed the raw input into completed
drafts that were sent to the company for review and approval. The company's local
ISO®
team then compared actual processes to the T-21
documentation drafts,
to ensure accuracy, and presented finalized versions to their Certification
Inspector for approval.
Results.
After hard work, by the company and
T-21, they were Certified as ISO-9000®
compliant. Their customers were pleased with their rapid progress and the CEO was very satisfied with
results.
"It was a lot of
work - but worth it," he told his T-21 TM.
"And, from the looks of the
Production Reports, we're starting to see fewer work errors and
lower rework costs. That 'ISO-9000® Compliant' Certification should help with
sales, too."
He continued,
"Your people took a tremendous load off of us with
the Documentation for this. It took everything we could muster here
to do the rest of it. We appreciate it."
Now, whenever a process is
modified or a new one added, the company forwards the raw
information to T-21 and their Team modifies or adds new
Documentation; this helps keep them ready for routine
re-inspections.
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