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ISO 9000 vs PM

9 replies [Last post]
Mon, 2004-02-02 10:57
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I would like to know to what extent are construction companies worldwide involved in quality management and certification under ISO 9000 standards.

I find Project Management techniques and procedures much more pertinent and developed for this field, but there’s a trend in our country, that is making ISO certification a must.

What is going on elsewhere?
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Replies

Thu, 2005-08-25 12:26
#1
Raja Izat Raja Ib...
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Hi,
so what about paperchase, u already said it can be done...
we have the procedure, flowchart.etc....only thing we have to do is to commit as stated procedure. This depends on how u work out or implement... the most important is attitude.
cheers
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Thu, 2005-08-25 11:59
#2
Ernesto Puyana
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Hi guys

Let me insist. What about the paperchase? somebody said it you can implement QA without so much paperwork, and I know it can be done, but I don’t think auditors will buy it, and that’s when the whole thing goes sour.
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Thu, 2005-08-25 02:56
#3
Raja Izat Raja Ib...
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Hi Ulyses,
U must understand Planner got all the information either by his / hers experience, Contract department, databank from Document Control(Procedure and Flow Chart). They will dig the no matter what causing them, to come out with answer for project manager. What i can say some of them really know about QA/QC..maybe their background same as u are...some of them only know the basis but as i told they will find away to answer what ever the project interface related the slow moving of the progress.
In other way... thats why the company hire people like u..
cheers
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Thu, 2005-08-25 02:13
#4
ulysses garcia
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hi guys,

I want to share my experence in construction industry, I work sometime in quality control. my opinion a quality plan ISO 9000... is a must in construction industry it is becuase, how can you control the job on site without the basis of quality assurance manual i.e. the testing requirments for concrete and steel and others , the manpower qualification doing the job, the contractors, materials, equipement calibration, material handling, control of non compliance product etc... this factors are much more needed to minimized if not be avoided any fitfalls may occurs. Finnaly PM and ISO is always correlated to each other. .. QUALITY IS A MUST IN EVERYTHING YOU DO... I hope you agree guys...

any comments are welcome
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Mon, 2004-02-16 09:51
#5
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Sorry I cannot agree with many statements you make.

The Auditors I have had to deal have been anything but subjective. (But it may be very different in your part of the world.)

ISO does not necessarily make you more competitive or efficient. It purely gives a guide for the standard of quality assurance for customers. Likewise a university degree gives employers an understanding of the skillset of a potential employee.

Good QA can be achieved without it being a bureaucratic nightmare.

It is essential that the guys ’in the trenches’ are QA compliant as it is their quality of work that will be judged at the end of the day.

I do think this discussion is black and white but I wouldn’t have said it was a dispute - just because I disagree with what has been said - for the reasons I posted earlier.

Finally in answer to your question: Yes, but it isn’t easy!
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Fri, 2004-02-13 13:00
#6
Ernesto Puyana
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ISO 9000 is very simple when you read the standard. However, from our experience in it’s implementation, consultants make it a burocratic hell and what’s worse, the subjective byas of certification auditors make it a guessing game with no winner except for them who charge fees by the visit.

Even though every consultant will tell you that ISO makes you more competitive and efficient, it won’t until they stop making it a paperchase, which undoubtedly demands time and effort to keep up. The excesive emphasys in documentation takes the focus off the important issues to put it on papers, which is what auditors check.

In the end, the system function at headquarters, maybe it even gets to the field office, but makes no difference where it matters: in the trenches.

This discussion should not become a black and white dispute. It’s not a matter of determining whether it works or not. I just ask: can we get it to better fit the nature of construction projects?

(reposted. forgot to sign in before. sorry)
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Wed, 2004-02-11 05:11
#7
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I totally disagree with Mark!

A construction project is probably the best example of where quality assurance and PM should work side by side - percisely because each project is unique!
To manufacture say 100,000 items in a production factory is relatively simple after the first few runs and the product assurance should be consistent. But because constructions are generally 1 offs make the product assurance more critical.

ISO 9000 is very simple. The problem is that the interpretation by companies can make it very bureaucratic in it’s implementation. Similarly I believe that Prince2 methodology comes under the same banner except it is less flexible than ISO in that the rules are fixed - You will write a PID, you will maintain baselines, you will this, you will that’ whereas ISO basically says, ’You shall maintain a QA system (but it’s up to you to say how you are going to do it)’

ISO 9000 just like PM has been introduced because people generally cannot be relied on to manage a project (or their part of it) either on time or to a satifactory quality. In my opinion you can have ISO 9000 without PM support. You would be a fool only to have PM.
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Mon, 2004-02-09 18:48
#8
Ernesto Puyana
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Thanks a lot for your input. I bet there’s a lot of us dragging trhough those certification processes, even though we find them... unfit (let´s not say useless).

Let´s speak out!
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Fri, 2004-02-06 01:00
#9
Mark Lomas
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Firstly, your title ...

You cannot compare PM with ISO 9000. At least not fairly. By ISO 9000, I presume you mean QA in general. QA was a good idea in manufacturing where a company made the same product repetatively. The premise was that, instead of the customer doing Quality Control, the supplier would set down a process to ensure quality before delivery, so that the Quality of his product was Assured.

In construction, every project is unique and therefore QA is not a good fit. However, there are certain elements in construction that are repetative, and would warrant a QA system. The trouble is, most client bodies (especially government) have written in that the company must be QA certified for whatever business they are in. We all have to be ISO 9000 certified. So we are all drowning in paperwork that is of little value, until we re-write QA to do what WE want it to do.

PM is not constrained in this way. However, there are PM methodologies that could require a very prescriptive approach to each step. Clients do not all require this as yet. The UK government, I believe, do require Prince2 to be applied as the PM standard. The good news is that Prince2 is not as unuseable as ISO 9000, Prince2 having been developed for its purpose, ISO 9000 having been adapted from a wholly different industry.
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