Do You Need a Consultant to Achieve ISO 9001 Certification?

Only if want to make it easy on yourself

Wed, 08/05/2009 - 12:12

Well, a simple answer is no, you don’t need a consultant to achieve ISO 9001 certification. In fact, many companies achieve ISO 9001 on their own, by appointing key employees to the task. The implications, however, of trying to implement a system on your own can be a set back to your business if resources are stretched too thin and can quickly outweigh any money saved by not hiring a consultant.

Let’s say you are the production manager of a cable company. You are an expert on cables and so are your people. One day you are asked to look for a better provider for health and insurance benefits for your employees because the current provider is not working well. What would you do? Your employees are your assets and their well being affects you indirectly, but are you the right person for this task? It may take an enormous amount of time to research and investigate what is available out there and what kind of questions to ask to get a better provider for health and insurance benefits. The time and cost factors are best optimized in assigning this task to an expert on employee benefits matters.

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Comments

"Also, most consultants like what they do and are not interested in creating a position for themselves in your business. They want to do their jobs, get you certified, get paid, and move to the next project. "-This is very true. So consultants tend to produce procedures that reflect what they think ought to be done instead of what is done and move on to the next project. One example-I asked a Quality Manager to explain what she did for management review as her auditor for ISO certification. What was being done was compliant to the ISO standard but not complaint to her procedure because the consultant wrote the procedure and she didn't understand the procedure. She had been certified by a registrar for several years.
Another place I audited (a sister plant to my facility) had a complex procedure for corrective action approval that was never followed. Again a consultant wrote their "required" procedures with little input from management. I think one should think very carefully before hiring a consultant to write procedures and many small businesses have been hurt by this approach.

Rhonda, your comments regarding consultants implementing systems that no one knows about is very true. I would call them bad consultants. As you and the gentleman before pointed out, good consultants should always strive to add value to the company by helping implement a system that is truly representative of the company's processes and culture. Good consultants possess the skills that allows them to help implement procedures that originate from the company's own processes, and use their experience to enhance this process. The article and the paragraph your mentioned, just intended to point out that good consultants are interested in helping rather than creating a long-term position by stretching the time it takes to get a company certified. Thanks for your comments.

A good consultant will be sure that the ownership of the system stays with the company and that there is not only buy-in to hire the consultant, but buy-in on all the processes and procedures the consultant develops. Any consultant that brings out canned procedures to implement is a consultant to run away from. A consultant that takes the time to understand the culture and processes of the company is one that will bring you lasting value and allow you to say goodbye at the end with little worry that you have no clue what was implemented.

You are right Ryan, good consultants have to get deeply involved in order to learn the company culture and actual processes so they can implement a system that is truly fit and valuable to the company. Thanks for your comments.

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