Treat Standards as Servants, Not Masters

Make them work for you, and they won’t be costly, time-consuming annoyances

Tue, 02/14/2012 - 11:23

Compliance is an unfortunate word in connection with standards because it suggests something arduous, unpleasant, costly, and annoying that one must do to “get the certificate.”

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It’s true that organizations must meet certain requirements to register to a standard like ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and the new ISO 50001 standard for energy management systems, but treatment of the standard as a servant rather than a master puts it into a far more desirable perspective.

Another misconception is that the standards focus on documentation for its own sake. Documentation is important not for its own sake but to ensure standardization and knowledge retention.

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Comments

Submitted by Petoskeytj on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 10:56

Good article.  The history provides some context.

However, the assertion that written procedures "...ensures not only that everybody does the job the same way, but also does it in the best known way." is a huge assumption that, all too often, is not true. 

Yes, good management will ensure procedural compliance.

But, it can be a trap. It can lock organizations into a fixed method, and inhibit growth and change.

Better management will ensure procedures are reviewed and revised to match actual practice, and allow for continuous improvement.  This is management rarely encountered. 

Organizations need to find a balance between innovation and procedural compliance.  This is one of my basic problems with ISO 9000 systems; the standard has an underlying assumption of 'best practices', but fails to ask the question, 'best practice for whom?" 

 

 

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