Featuring: CCongratulationsongratulations HKQMA DDiane ...2 | Official Magazine of the New Zealand Organisation for Quality – October 2012 World Business Capability Congress 2012

Featuring:

NZOQ meets with

HKQMA

NZOQ attends ANQ

congress

ISO 9000 celebrates

silver jubilee

ISO 9000 – the next

25 years

ISO 9000: the

debate

Benchmarking past,

present and future

And more ...O

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201

2

NEW ZEALAND ORGANISATION FOR QUALITY

CongratulationsCongratulationsDiane Baguley Diane Baguley

Celebrating World Standards Day; Celebrating World Standards Day; Standards NZ turning 80; Standards NZ turning 80;

and the Silver Jubilee of ISO 9000and the Silver Jubilee of ISO 9000

2 | Official Magazine of the New Zealand Organisation for Quality – October 2012

World Business

Capability Congress 20125 to 7 December 2012, Auckland

Register today!You are invited to register for this event as a sponsor, exhibitor and/or delegate.The Congress includes the 27th NZOQ Conference, 7th International Benchmarking Conference (annual conference of the Global Benchmarking Network) and the 2012 New Zealand Business Excellence Awards.For further information and to register your interest as a sponsor, exhibitor and/or delegate please contact Angela Llauder, NZOQ National Offi ce, tel: +64 6 351 4407 or [email protected] more information about the Congress visit: http://www.worldbusinesscapabilitycongress.com/

Happy 80th birthday, Standards NZ!!

Setting the standards for 80 years Standards New Zealand (SNZ) is celebrating its 80th birthday. Its origins can be found in the aftermath of the Hawkes Bay earthquake on 3 February, 1931. The quake measured 7.9 on the Richter scale and killed 258 people, destroyed buildings and landmarks, dislodged the coastline, and the landscape changed forever. Then after the earthquakes, fi re ravaged the towns of Napier and Hastings.

In 1932 the NZ Standards Institute (now known as Standards New Zealand) was established to ensure future events of this scale did not result in the same loss of life.

In 1933 the fi rst standard was issued, NZS:1 The Colouring and Marking of Foundry Patterns. It had been adopted from a British Standard. In 1938 the fi rst original New Zealand Standard was issued, NZSS:143 Galvanized (Zinc coated) Steel Fencing Wire (otherwise known as 'No. 8 wire').

Today, Standards New Zealand has a catalogue of nearly 3000 Standards covering a wide range of topics, including: health and disability, sport and recreation, energy effi ciency, fi re safety, and fertility services, to name a few.

NZOQ congratulates Standards New Zealand on reaching this signifi cant milestone.

Official Magazine of the New Zealand Organisation for Quality – October 2012 | 3

learnnsharengrow

QNewZ Staff

Editor: Lyn Nikoloff, Bijoux Publishing Ltd.

Sub editor: Ellen Fowles

Typesetting: Philippa Proctor, Pip’s Pre-Press Services

Distribution: NZ Organisation for Quality

email: [email protected]

ISSN: 0111-4158 (Print)

ISSN: 1179-7916 (Online)

NZOQ President

Tony Stephenson email: [email protected]

NZOQ General Manager

Helen Bainesemail: [email protected]

NZOQ General Enquiries

NZ Organisation for QualityPO Box 6224th Floor, City Council Building, Palmerston NorthTelephone 06 351 4407Fax 06 351 4408email: [email protected]

QNewZ Advertising

We welcome advertising, and rates are available on request from [email protected]

QNewZ Deadlines for articles and advertising:

November/December 2012 – 1 November 2012 (publication date 1 December)January/February 2013 – 1 December 2012(publication date 1 February)

Contributions for QNewZ

QNewZ welcomes contributions for each newsletter but please contact the editor in the fi rst instance at: [email protected]

Disclaimer: QNewZ is the newsletter of the NZOQ and is produced monthly. Opinions expressed in this publication are those of the various authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Editor or NZOQ. Websites referred to in this publication are not necessarily endorsed.

Front page: Diane Baguley presented with a SNZ 2011 Meritorious Award (Individual). See page 6.

ContentsQ conference

2 World Business Capability Congress 2012

Q board

4 NZOQ meets with HKQMA4 NZOQ attends ANQ Congress

Q grow

2 Happy 80th birthday Standards NZ 5 ISO 9000 celebrates 25th anniversary 6 SNZ 2011 Meritorious Service Award (individual) ... 7 The next 25 years of ISO 90009 ISO 9000: the debate13 Benchmarking past, present and future

Q share

17 ANQ Congress 201218 Benchmarking and league tables in education19 RACI – defi ning attributes

Q learn

20 NZOQ Training Calendar 201220 CQA

Regular features

19 Malcolm’s memo20 New CQMs20 New members

In the QCongratulations to Standards New Zealand on your 80th birthday (p.2)!

On behalf of NZOQ I extend a very warm welcome to members of SNZ – we hope you enjoy this bumper issue of QNewZ which celebrates the 80th birthday of SNZ, the silver jubilee of ISO 9000 and World Standards Day (pp.5 to 12).

Recently NZOQ attended the ANQ Congress, taking the opportunity to meet with delegates

from the Asia-Pacifi c region (p.4). Our delegation also met with HKQMA to formalise a MoU (p.4) and to award CQMs to their members who had reciprocal quality qualifi cations (p.20). Nigel Grigg reports on the ANQ Congress and IAQ symposium (p.17).

NZOQ Honorary member, Diane Baguley begins our celebration of world standards with a salute to the ISO 9000 family of standards (p.5). Recently Diane received a SNZ 2011 Meritorious Service Award (individual) for her services to quality management and quality assurance, and we extend our warm congratulations to her (p.6). What is the future of ISO 9000 (p.7)?

The Chartered Quality Institute invited Dr Nigel Croft and Prof. John Seddon to respond to the question: Is the ISO 9000 family of standards the best tool for quality today? (p.9) – and Malcolm Macpherson writes about the value of standards for small businesses (p.19).

With the NZOQ/COER/NZBEF World Business Capability Congress only two months away (p.2) we bring to your attention an article outlining the basic tenets of benchmarking – the past, present and future (p13). And Sarah Benjamin writes about benchmarking in education (p.18).

If you have enjoyed reading this issue of QnewZ, and are not a member of NZOQ, then please contact Helen Baines, NZOQ General Manager (Tel 06 351 4407) to fi nd out how you can become a member of NZOQ.

Kind regardsLyn Nikoloff


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d NZOQ meets with HKQMA

Just prior to the recent ANQ conference in China, NZOQ took the opportunity to formalise a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Hong Kong Quality Management Association (HKQMA) in relation to NZOQ’s Certifi ed Quality Manager (CQM) and Certifi ed Quality Practitioner (CQP) registration. At the ceremony reciprocal CQMs were presented.

The NZOQ delegation consisting of President, Tony Stephenson; General Manager, Helen Baines; and NZOQ agent, Robin Corner from Eagle English Ltd (Div. of Quality and Safety International) met with HKQMA chairman, Dr Gavin Chau.

The meeting with Dr Chau was instrumental in formalising the agreement and promoting NZOQ and its services within Hong Kong and China.

NZOQ General Manager, Helen Baines signed the MoU on behalf of NZOQ. “There are great benefi ts in Hong Kong for quality professionals having their qualifi cations recognised in New Zealand and internationally,” explains Ms Baines.

The meeting was facilitated by Robin Corner with translation services provided Dr Edmund Fu. “Dr Fu's sensitive handling of the meetings helped communicate the position of NZOQ in a way that the average translator would have been unable to do and this also played a crucial part in the success of the meetings,” adds Robin Corner.

While attending the ANQ congress, Robin Corner took the opportunity to introduce the NZOQ delegation to Quality organisations from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. These meetings will now provide the foundation for further discussions with regard delete s to the provision of services and professional recognition.

NZOQ President Tony Stephenson formalises the MoU with Hong Kong Quality Management Association Chairman Gavin Chau.

NZOQ attends ANQ CongressNZOQ sent a delegation to the ANQ Congress which this

year was held in Hong Kong in the fi rst week of August,

writes NZOQ President Tony Stephenson.

The 2012 ANQ Congress attracted over 400 attendees from a wide range of countries in the Asia Pacifi c region including Japan, China, and the People’s Republic of China, Singapore and India. The congress had the theme of: ‘Striving for excellence through product and service quality.’

During the congress we took the opportunity to meet with quality organisations from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to discuss future MoU opportunities. These meetings were facilitated by Robin Corner of Eagle English Ltd (Div. of Quality and Safety International) and were translated by Dr Edmund Fu.

We noted that the NZOQ Diploma in Quality is of great interest to many in the region. It was also good to meet a number of people who have been on educational visits to New Zealand. There was strong interest in the region with ISO 22000 and Food Safety in general during our discussions.

This year the congress included an open meeting with the International Academy of Quality (IAQ). NZOQ President, Tony Stephenson and board member, Nigel Grigg were invited to participate in the discussion about educational

issues in the region. One of the topics was using the ISO 9001 model as a base for day-to-day operations and whether the ‘product’ was a competent graduate!

The congress had a great mix of papers, many being very practical – such as nursing. The papers also gave us a great insight into the quality of papers we will see at the World Business Capability Congress, to be held this year in Auckland from 5 to 7 December. We were impressed with the poster papers, and have decided to include them in the Congress because they suit authors who are more comfortable talking with a smaller group.

Six Sigma and Lean are still major topics of interest and we had the pleasure of going to a meeting of the HK Six Sigma Association.

In Asia one has to do business face- to- face; and so our attendance at ANQ was very much appreciated, and we as an organisation have forged strong links with the quality fraternity in the region, thanks to Robin Corner.

NZOQ is positioned well in the Asia Pacifi c region and the future looks most promising. I extend a warm thank you on behalf of NZOQ to everyone, including our agent, Robin Corner and translator, Dr Fu, and Chairman of HKMA Dr Gavin Chau for making us most welcome and ensuring our time at ANQ was productive and useful.


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ISO 9000 celebrates 25th anniversary

It gives me great pleasure to salute the 25th

anniversary of the ISO 9000 family of quality

management system standards, writes Diane

Baguley, NZOQ Honorary member and a

recipient of Standards NZ 2011 Meritorious

Service Award.

For the past sixteen years I have participated in ISO/TC 176, the technical committee responsible for these standards, so I have seen the development process at close quarters. This has been a tremendous experience – working with friends from many countries in working groups, tackling challenging technical questions and battling the frustrations of reaching international agreement.

New Zealand involvement in ISO/TC 176

New Zealand has a recognised voice in ISO/TC 176. It is not just a matter of attending meetings, though becoming known as a delegate certainly helps. We also participate by email, commenting on large numbers of committee documents and draft standards. Over the years there has been a small but dedicated group of people, most of them identifi ed through NZOQ, prepared to receive and discuss the stream of weighty emails.

Some issues go beyond the ISO 9000 family to other ISO Technical Committees. New Zealand participants in environmental, food, documentation and road traffi c safety management standards development have participated in such wider discussions, most importantly in recent times on the development by ISO of a common framework for management system standards. This framework has already been applied by some ISO/TCs and will be used for the next revision of ISO 9001, planned for publication in 2015 (for more about the revision of ISO 9001, see the article in this issue “The next 25 years of ISO 9000” by Dr Nigel Croft).

ISO 9001 revisions

Since 1997, when I became a delegate to ISO/TC 176, I have been involved in various working or task groups, both large and small. However, the dominant part of my involvement has been in the revision of ISO 9001 Quality Management System – Requirements. I participated in the 2000 and 2008 revisions and I am now in the working group for the next revision. We have just completed the Design Specifi cation and related documentation for the revision in preparation for ballot (member bodies of the responsible committee, including Standards New Zealand, vote on such ballots).

My focus on ISO 9001 revision was to some extent accidental – I have a deep interest in going beyond ‘requirements’ to the application of quality management principles to organisational improvement (which brings in ISO 9004 and many other supporting standards). However, in ISO/TC 176 there tends to be a shortage of people with a background in the service and construction sectors, so it was more valuable for me to work within the ISO 9001 revision process. I could sometimes sharpen a discussion,

for example in the case of the requirements of 8.3 Control of nonconforming product: “You are a surgeon. You have just amputated the wrong leg. How do you apply this clause?” Nevertheless the challenge to produce a ‘service-sector-friendly’ ISO 9001 remains – it is still high on the priority list for the current revision.

ISO 9001 has become the most recognised member of the ISO 9000 family and unfortunately,

many people never look further, even to understand the Quality Management Principles on which it is founded. The existence of a requirements standard that can be used for quality management system certifi cation has been a two-edged sword. On the one hand it has provided a valuable tool for controlling quality through the supply chain (note that ISO recently made its brochure “ISO 9001 in the supply chain” free to download); on the other hand the focus on compliance and, in some cases, seeing a certifi cate simply as a marketing tool or a ‘ticket to trade’ has done great damage to the reputation of quality management itself.

The uses and abuses of ISO 9001 in particular need to be seen in the light of the countervailing forces at work in the marketplace. While advances in management thinking might get widely talked about, when it comes to the crunch all too often people revert to short-term thinking. Cost cutting, with only superfi cial regard to the underlying processes, kicks in as a quick-fi x way to meet management or shareholder demands. There is now much more recognition of risk, yet all too often an organisation will effectively transfer their own risk to suppliers or customers, depending on legal measures rather than management processes to control the outcome.

One of the great hopes for quality management system implementation was achieving a signifi cant degree of self-regulation, particularly for services impacting on the wider community. Clearly defi ned quality requirements, whether or not including certifi cation to ISO 9001, can provide a level playing fi eld with a sound basis for monitoring performance. Unfortunately the promise of self-regulation has all too often been empty. Where diffi culties arise, the fault frequently lies on both sides – those with responsibilities to monitor fail to do so effectively and those responsible for complying with agreed requirements fail to do so. I remain hopeful that the management culture responsible for these failings will mature under the increasing pressure of public expectation.

ISO 9001 - the debateI have sympathies with both sides of the argument in the article “ISO 9000 – The debate” published elsewhere in this issue (p. 7). I suspect that some of the antagonism to ISO 9000 goes back to the years before the development of the Quality Management Principles and the incorporation of the ‘process approach’ in ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 9004:2000. The process approach and systems thinking had been fundamental to quality management well before that time,


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period of time to respond.

My early pathway in quality was far more deeply infl uenced by Edwards Deming than quality management standards. That was the foundation on which I built my understanding of how organisations work. The ISO Quality Management Principles, and hence the ISO 9000 family after 2000, largely fi tted with that foundation. For all their failings, I am still committed to the ongoing development of ISO 9001, ISO 9004 and related standards so that they can incorporate the best of quality management thinking.

I went to Deming’s Auckland four-day seminar in 1985. I was the Counter of the Red Beads in one of his memorable demonstrations of the common follies of measuring worker performance. These simple demonstrations of basic statistics in a work setting were mind-changing for many people. They were important not just for developing an understanding of the predictability of processes; they also

showed the fundamental importance of respecting people enough to analyse actual data before drawing negative conclusions about work performance.

Following the Deming seminar I visited my parents. My father was then 77. He had retired at 73 as a maintenance fi tter at Horotiu Freezing Works where he had worked for fi fty years. My father had always been an inventive person, sketching solutions to technical problems with a piece of chalk, then building them and improving them. I explained to him something of what Deming had been teaching. I have always remembered what he said to me: “Well, what I always tried to do was make it possible for people to do twice as much work with half as much effort”. I think that simple statement is very close to the principle that has always driven me, whether working in organisations or on international standards development.

For further information contact [email protected]

SNZ 2011 Meritorious Service Award (Individual):Diane Baguley In August Diane Baguley, an honorary member of NZOQ, was presented with a Standards New Zealand 2011 Meritorious Service Award (individual) for quality management and quality assurance.

The award nominator wrote: “Diane’s knowledge and expertise is a huge asset to Standards New Zealand and New Zealand Inc, which ensures that the view put forward is balanced, well-considered, and based on consensus”.

Diane is a representative on International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) 176: Quality management and quality assurance, and related subcommittees and working groups. She also serves on the joint Australian/New Zealand Committee QR-008: Quality systems. With an academic and professional background in medical research, manufacturing and consulting, Diane has extensive experience in the discipline of quality management.

In 1997 she became the New Zealand delegate to ISO/TC 176 and took part in the revision of ISO 9001:2000 Quality management systems – Requirements. Since that time, she has contributed to the development of a number of Standards within the ISO 9000 family.

Diane became an honorary life member of the New Zealand Organisation for Quality in 1999 and a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2008 for services to business.

At the award reception at the Beehive, Associate Commerce Minister John Banks congratulated all the winners and acknowledged the important role high quality product Standards, and management and service Standards play in boosting business growth. Winners of Standards New Zealand's annual Meritorious Service Awards include:

Individual committee members: Diane Baguley, Bill Birch (William Caccia-Birch), Andrew Brickell, Alison Elliott, and Peter Fisher.

Committee of the Year: the Department of Internal Affairs Compliance Guide Advisory Group.

Standards Council Award for Outstanding Contribution to Standards and Standardisation: Derek Johns

NZOQ extends warm congratulations to Diane and all the other award recipients.

Congratulating Diane Baguley, recipient of a Standards New Zealand 2011 Meritorious Service Award (individual) are Standards Council Member Vaughan Renner, Honourable John Banks, Associate Minister of Commerce, and Standards New Zealand Chief Executive Debbie Chin


Introduction

As we celebrate the ‘Silver Jubilee’ of the ISO 9000 series of standards (fi rst published in March 1987), we could look back at their incredible success in promoting quality management (and ISO!) around the world.

We could congratulate ourselves about the fact that they have consistently been ISO’s best-selling standards, have fi rmly established a common platform and language for organisations to discuss quality and, by defi ning requirements in ISO 9001 that give a base-level confi dence in an organisation’s ability to provide conforming products, they have had a key role in facilitating world trade.

We could also expand at length about how the standards have formed a basis for the development of a whole range of other management system standards including environmental, health and safety, information security, energy and others, as well as ISO 9001 and ISO 9004’s extensive use in specifi c sectors, including aerospace, telecommunications, education, local government, and health care, to name but a few. Instead of self-congratulation, though, let’s look to what the future holds, and what ISO/TC176 Subcommittee 2 is doing to ensure that its standards continue to provide a solid basis for quality management in the NEXT 25 years!

Looking to the future

ISO/TC 176/SC2’s Vision is for its products (primarily ISO 9001 and ISO 9004) to be “recognized and respected worldwide, and used by organizations as an integral component of their sustainable development initiatives”. This pivotal role of quality management systems as a basis for the ‘economic growth’ component of the sustainability agenda has often been overlooked, with attention in recent years being focused on the more topical elements of ‘environmental integrity’ and ‘social equity’ (Figure 1).

We should not forget, though, that the ISO 9001 requirements standard is, and will most likely continue to

be, the ‘entry point’ for most organisations seeking to implement any formal management system. Although not a requirement, third party certifi cation to ISO 9001 will continue to be a key driver.

As we look to the future, however, it is important to ensure that quality management is seen as much more than ‘certifi cation to ISO 9001’ and really does help organisations to achieve sustained success over the long term. This means promoting quality in the widest sense of

the word, and encouraging organisations to look BEYOND compliance to a set of requirements by providing the necessary linkages that will stimulate organisations to use, for example, ISO 9004 and other ISO management system standards.

Basic principles revisited

Both ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 are currently based on a set of eight quality management principles that were developed in the mid-1990s by a small group of experts who were very familiar with the teachings and philosophies of the major quality ‘gurus’ of the last century.

TC176/SC2, in collaboration with its counterparts at SC1, has recently undertaken a full review of the quality management principles, and it is pleasing (but not surprising) to be able to report that they have stood the test of time, and only a few minor adjustments have been found necessary to bring them up to date for the next generation of quality management standards.

The next revision of ISO 9001

Since the publication of the minor amendment to ISO 9001 in 2008, SC2 has been carrying out extensive research and preparation for the next major revision (currently forecast for 2015), including the following activities:

• Development of a long-term strategic plan for SC2 and its products

• Several open workshops conducted during SC2 plenary meetings, including interactions with users of the ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 standards

• Active participation in the work of the ISO/TMB Joint Technical Coordination Group, aimed at promoting greater alignment of ISO’s suite of management system standards by developing a common high-level structure, common defi nitions and some common text (now published as Annex SL to the ISO Directives)

• A study of the latest trends in quality management, including an analysis of new concepts that might be considered for incorporation into future revisions of ISO 9001 and ISO 9004

• Analysis of data from an extensive web-based survey of users and potential users of ISO 9001 and ISO 9004, conducted in ten languages, with a total of 11,722 responses from 122 countries.

Economic Growth

Social Equity

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The next 25 years of ISO 9000Written by Dr Nigel H Croft, Chair of ISO/TC176/SC2 (Quality Systems)

EnvironmentalIntegrity

Sustainable

development

Figure 1: Three aspects of sustainable development.


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The results of these activities, together with the systematic review of ISO 9001 that was completed in

March 2012, indicated that whilst there is still a high level of satisfaction with the current version of the standard, the majority considered it appropriate to carry out a revision to keep the standard relevant, to refl ect changes in the environment in which it is used and ensure that it continues to be fi t for its intended purpose of “providing confi dence in the organization’s ability to consistently provide product that meets customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements”.

At the fi rst meeting of TC176/SC2/WG24 in Bilbao, Spain, in June 2012, the New Work Item Proposal for the revision of ISO 9001 was developed, together with a draft design specifi cation, project plan and a preliminary draft of how the new standard could look, after the integration of the current version of ISO 9001 with the common text from Annex SL of the ISO Directives. The outputs of this meeting are currently being circulated to SC2 member bodies for ballot and, subject to the ballot being approved, drafting work is expected to begin in November 2012.

According to the draft design specifi cation, the revised standard should (among other things):• provide a stable core set of requirements for the next 10

years or more• remain generic, and relevant to all sizes and types of

organization operating in any sector• maintain the current focus on effective process

management to produce the desired outcomes• take account of changes in quality management systems

practices and technology since the last major revision (in the year 2000)

• refl ect changes in the increasingly complex, demanding, and dynamic environments in which organizations operate

• apply Annex SL of the ISO Directives, in order to enhance compatibility and alignment with other ISO management system standards

• facilitate effective implementation by organizations and effective conformity assessment by 1st, 2nd and 3rd parties

• use simplifi ed language and writing styles so as to improve the ease of understanding and consistency of interpretations of its requirements.

The proposed timeline for the development of ‘ISO 9001:2015’ is shown in Figure 2. Whilst it is appreciated that more aggressive ‘fast-track’ development routes are now available within ISO,

TC176/SC2 is planning a conservative approach and is likely to adopt the ‘default’ 3-year timeline.

This is to take into consideration the need for extensive dialogue with the many interested parties including, but not limited to, specifi c sectors whose own requirements standards are based on ISO 9001, organisations that have systems currently certifi ed to ISO 9001:2008, certifi cation bodies, accreditation bodies and regulators.

In view of the signifi cant impact of any changes, verifi cation and validation work on the new standard will be carried out using volunteer organisations in different parts of the world once the Committee Draft stage has been reached.

Acknowledgement: ISZO Focus + kindly gave permission for this article to be reproduced in full.

Figure 2: Proposed high-level timing for development of ISO 9011-2015.


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ISO 9000: the debateOn the 25th anniversary of the ISO 9000 series, the Chartered Quality Institute invited CQI Fellows John Seddon and

Nigel Croft to respond to the question: Is the ISO 9000 family of standards the best tool for quality today?

Nigel Croft1: Yes The core standards of ISO 9000, ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 are excellent tools that have shown their worth over the last 25 years, when they have been used in the right way, in the right context and for the right reasons.

ISO 9000

Let’s start with ISO 9000. Sadly, few quality professionals and even fewer managers ever take the trouble to really understand the principles mentioned in that standard, which underpin the whole ISO 9000 philosophy. They are too eager to get to Clause 4.1 of ISO 9001, to see what they have to do to become certifi ed. Among the eight quality management principles mentioned in Clause 0.2 of ISO 9000 are the importance of: a customer focus; leadership; involvement of people; and a systems approach to management (see Figure 1).

Are these principles really so much at odds with the systems-thinking that many quality professionals have promoted and, quite rightly, continue to promote? I think not. Hardly surprising, because the eight principles were developed by a group of highly respected systems thinkers who had worked closely with the likes of Deming, Juran, Ohno, Crosby, Ishikawa and others. But we have to remember – these are principles, not requirements, and if something is not mandatory, then many folks won’t even bother with it. If it is mandatory (as a pre-requisite for certifi cation, for example), then some will do it for the wrong reasons and not achieve the maximum benefi t. As Deming used to say – though albeit in a different context: “You don’t need to do any of this – survival is not compulsory!”

ISO 9001

Turning now to the ISO 9001 requirements standard, it is what it is – a set of requirements aimed at providing a baseline level of confi dence in a (supplier) organisation’s ‘ability to consistently provide products that meet customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements’; nothing more, nothing less. When ISO 9001 was fi rst published 25 years ago, it was aimed at specifying requirements for use in second-party contractual (business-to-business) situations, and the concept of third-party certifi cation was in its infancy. Since that time, and despite some (often well-founded) criticisms, I truly believe that the incredible success of the ISO 9001 certifi cation phenomenon has helped global supply chains to become more effective and more effi cient, and there is ample evidence to back this up. For example, in a recent project carried out by UNIDO (the United Nations Industrial Development Organization)

a sample of over 400 major purchasing organisations in Asia were asked to compare the performance of their ISO 9001-certifi ed suppliers with that of non-certifi ed suppliers, based on a number of parameters. ISO 9001-certifi ed suppliers consistently rated ‘better’ or ‘much better’ than similar non-certifi ed organisations.

ISO 9001 is not, though – and never has been – intended as a prescriptive model by which organisations can achieve excellence or, indeed, survive in an ever-more competitive marketplace. That’s where other tools are needed for the job.

ISO 9004:2009

ISO 9004:2009 - Managing for the sustained success of an organisation: A quality management approach goes beyond the basic requirements of ISO 9001, and guides organisations towards sustained success by identifying and meeting the needs and expectations not only of their customers, but also of other interested parties over the long term and in a balanced way.

This standard is specifi cally not intended for certifi cation, but may be used as a basis for self-assessment (by the

1 Dr Nigel Croft, FCQI CQP, serves as non-executive board member of a number of commercial and non-profi t international organisations. He currently serves as chair of ISO/TC 176/SC2, responsible for the ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 standards.

The incredible success of the ISO 9001 certifi cation phenomenon has helped global supply chains to become more effective and more effi cient – Nigel Croft

A customer focus: Organisations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current and future customer needs, should meet customer requirements and strive to exceed customer expectations.

Leadership: Leaders establish unity of purpose and direction of the organisation. They should create and maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully involved in achieving the organisation’s objectives.

Involvement of people: People at all levels are the essence of an organisation and their full involvement enables their abilities to be used for the organisation’s benefi t.

A systems approach to management: Identifying, understanding and managing interrelated processes as a system contributes to the organisation’s effectiveness and effi ciency in achieving its objectives.

Figure 1: Four quality management principles in Clause 0.2 of ISO 9000.


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system. It addresses topics such as strategic planning within the organisation’s specifi c business environment, policy deployment, employee motivation, management of fi nancial and natural resources, knowledge management and innovation – topics that are not directly covered in ISO 9001.

A common platform for

quality discussions

I believe that many of the other standards, models and tools that are currently in use around the world are mutually compatible with the ISO 9000 family and have a role to play if they are used in the right context and in a sensible manner. I don’t see any of them (including, for example, EFQM or Baldrige models, Six Sigma, Lean manufacturing and and what?) as being ‘competitors’ to ISO 9000, though. On the contrary, my experience has shown that a sound quality management system that is based on the ISO 9000 standards can provide a disciplined and sustained approach that allows these other initiatives to achieve their maximum potential. What all of them tend to have in common is the need to understand the organisation’s processes; how these processes interact as a system, and how to maximise the effectiveness and effi ciency of the system in order to achieve the desired results.

The strength of the ISO 9000 series is that it provides a common platform and language for organisations around the world to discuss quality. Furthermore, by establishing requirements in ISO 9001 that give a base-level confi dence in an organisation’s ability to provide conforming products, it thereby facilitates world trade. Are we really so naïve as to think that a purchasing organisation might simply choose a supplier across the other side of the planet based on a statement, taken at face value, that they are applying ‘systems thinking’ or ‘total quality approaches’ to the provision of their product? I think not. Nor is it economically feasible for them to travel halfway round the globe to carry out their own supplier evaluations. That is where the strength of ISO 9001 lies, provided we can ensure adequate confi dence in the accredited certifi cation process.

Let’s be clear, though – ISO 9001 itself is not a business excellence model or a solution to all an organisation’s problems, though it has sometimes been over-sold as such. Of course there are collateral benefi ts that should

be derived when an organisation that has never been exposed to quality goes about implementing a quality management system in what I would call a ‘wholesome’ way. In this case, certifi cation should come as a natural consequence of a well-implemented system.

The problems arise when certifi cation becomes an end in itself, and one of the criticisms that some people (rightly) level at ISO 9001 is that it has also been wrongly interpreted, implemented and assessed, in many cases by those who

have jumped on the consulting or certifi cation bandwagon, without understanding or attempting to deploy the quality management principles on which it is based.

Improving ISO 9001

From my perspective, there are still a few practical ways in which we can improve ISO 9001, and in fact we are just about to begin a new revision process. Of course, the fi nal decisions on what will be incorporated into the new revision will be made by the ISO/TC176/SC2 member bodies, but I certainly expect to see a greater prominence given to the question of risk and the business context in which an organisation operates. That doesn’t necessarily mean implementing a formal risk management methodology, but associated with the various organisational processes, and their relative importance in terms of ensuring product conformity.

I would also like to see more emphasis given, in plain and simple language, to the organisation’s ability to consistently provide a conforming product to its customers. That is the very essence of ISO 9001 and needs to be made explicit throughout the standard. At the end of the day, it’s irrelevant how pretty the quality manual is, how many documented procedures and work instructions the organisation has developed, how many hours of training it conducts, or how many pieces of measuring equipment it calibrates, if the outcome of all that does not provide confi dence in the consistency of the product the organisation is providing to its customers.

The ISO 9000 series provides a common platform and language for organisations around the world to discuss quality – Nigel Croft

2 Professor John Seddon, FCQI CQP, has received numerous academic awards for his contribution to management science. He is the leader of the Vanguard consultancies which operate in eight countries.

Compliance with ISO 9000 is no guarantee of quality – John Seddon

Professor John Seddon2: NoI should start by declaring a prejudice: when I fi rst studied quality, I learned that it was a different way of doing and managing work. Not an additional ‘thing to do’, not a means for controlling work (or people), not even a method for inspection – it was a different way of thinking about management.

It was the work of W. Edwards Deming that persuaded me to this view. Having pointed out the obvious truth that mankind had invented ‘management’, he proceeded to demonstrate with rigour and evidence that the result didn’t work very well. So I became attached to an outlier on management thinking, even an outlier in the quality fraternity – for while other quality gurus were making hay with quality training, labelled total quality management (TQM) , Deming carefully kept his


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distance. Indeed, it was during an assignment evaluating the reasons for a failure of TQM that, obliged to read the quality literature, I discovered Deming’s ideas.

At about the same time, I came across BS 5750 (now ISO 9000). What I saw disturbed me. I have worked exclusively in service organisations, so imagine my reaction to being presented with a report, produced in response to BS 5750’s requirement for an ‘escalation’ procedure, the only purpose of which was to warn senior managers of the names of customers who might call next week with a complaint.

I realise many readers will be thinking, “But this is simply mis- or over-interpretation of the standard”. But my retort has always been: how much scope for misinterpretation can we or should we tolerate? If we claim to be a quality movement, we should tolerate none. It is no defence to say ISO 9000 is fi ne if you do it right. What interests me is seeing how people use ISO 9000; and considering why.

Compliance no guarantee of quality

Let us move for a moment to what I would like to see: if a customer has a problem, the fi rst person to spot it would acknowledge it and immediately access whatever organisa-tional resources are required to resolve it. Of course, you could base your procedures on such a process and hey presto! But that won’t happen, because most managers believe it would be a costly, even crazy, thing to do. Such a view is false but widely held, because it is consistent with current management theory. It is allied to the view that you shouldn’t and can’t give customers what they want: another falsehood. Both are based on a further falsehood, that quality must be ‘balanced’ against cost.

Unfortunately, the argument for ‘balance’ or trade-off merely masks the true management obsession, which is cost. It is the cost obsession that in turn leads service managers to impose limits on customer-handling times, standardise service work and outsource service transactions to lower-cost providers or share them in pursuit of economies of scale. These, too, are misguided ideas which in practice worsen service and increase costs for service organisations.

So, returning to ISO 9000, on top of doing nothing to challenge such ideas, it is often cited as a justifi cation for inspecting service-workers’ work. This industry has become increasingly burdensome in its own right, due to the introduction of call-recording, voice-recognition, mystery shopping and call-monitoring technologies. But it is an industry working on 5% of the overall issue; as Deming insisted, 95% of the causes of performance reside in the system, the way the work works.

My point is this: a service organisation can sport an ISO 9000 certifi cate and exhibit all of these features that in actual fact are causes of ‘sub-optimisation’, to use Deming’s terminology. To put it more bluntly, compliance with ISO 9000 is no guarantee of quality.

I can’t be the only one who thought the recent development of a standard for complaint management was absurd. Think about it. Our conventional ideas about organisation design create complaints. By ‘conventional ideas’ I mean what

Deming described as the ‘prevailing style of management’ or ‘command-and-control’ management: a top-down, functional design that separates decision making from work, makes decisions with arbitrary data, where relations with customers and suppliers are contractual and the management ethic is to manage budgets and people. Institutionalising the management of subsequent complaints amounts to madness.

As with other models (IiP, EFQM, etc), ISO 9000’s theory is that comparison to the model is a constructive and worthwhile intervention. My book, The Case against ISO 9000, attacked this thesis by describing what organisations did when using the standard and comparing it with what they could have done as a result of taking on board some of Deming’s ideas. My case then, as now, is that the clauses of the standard are not without hidden theory of their own and it is theory that should concern us.

Coercion drives its use

But this is not my central criticism of the standard. Even if we could write a perfect standard, based on sound theory which, if followed diligently, will guarantee better quality, encouraging, insisting – even coercing people (‘You comply

or we won’t buy’) to use it is the least effective method for changing management thinking. Coercion will drive compliance, not learning.

Without the obligation placed on suppliers by their customers, would the use of ISO 9000 have grown? Without the infl uence of those who make a living from it in European institutions, would it have been communicated to all emerging economies that ISO 9000 was

a fundamental requirement for trading on the world stage? To ask the question a different way: ‘Does ISO 9000 create such value in itself that such levers are unnecessary?’ We have to accept that the answer is no. If the levers were gone, would ISO 9000 go too?

My own research (in the early 1990s) was spurred by vocal discontent. I began with an opinion survey among the then BSI published list of ISO 9000 companies, which turned up major concerns (and which still exist, I believe) with value for money and value-in-use. It was clear to me then that uptake was more to do with marketplace coercion than any inherent value in the exercise.

I have no problem with product standards. To be sure, life is made easier when electronic devices talk to each other and would be easier still if electrical plugs were usable in other countries. And it is, of course, vitally important to ensure that measuring equipment is properly calibrated.

Do we need a standard?

But why do we need a standard? Why wouldn’t anybody who used measuring devices be passionately concerned about calibration? Shouldn’t this be at the centre of his or her universe? Isn’t it something a competent person should know about? If we do feel the need to publish anything, should it not be limited to education on how to effect proper calibration? Why do we believe in the need for an external party to confi rm compliance? And, at the heart of all this, what are the consequences of external sanctions on human behaviour?

People who know they have a need will seek the means.

ISO 9000 has relegated ‘quality’, through compliance, to being a ticket to ride – John Seddon


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his recipe for TQM by training missed the simple truth that the starting point has to be understanding what the problem is that you are trying to solve. Only then can you reach for, or even fashion, a tool to solve it. Here’s the point: learning about ideas that challenge the status quo – as quality surely does – occurs through pull rather than push.

As with all ‘tools’, ISO 9000’s nature has been push. Margaret Thatcher, believing it would be benefi cial for the economy, pushed the button on what started as BS 5750. Michael Heseltine had an opportunity to put a stop to it in the mid-1980s but instead put his energy into doing the wrong thing righter with the TickIT scheme, and today ISO 9000 is embedded in our institutions, across the board. All the protagonists believed it would do good. We can’t doubt their intent. But where is the passion for evaluating its impact? Have we, in all honesty, been through a 25-year quality revolution?

ISO 9000 a ‘ticket to ride’

ISO 9000 has relegated ‘quality’, through compliance, to being a ticket to ride. Quality lives in quality departments; quality remains synonymous with inspection, and the concept of third-party inspection has spread like a disease, with particularly harmful effects on the public sector; quality people have their own training and tools emporia. In short, this is not a movement that is making leaders curious about what Deming called ‘a better way’.

Quality management still doesn’t cut it with management. And yet it should. The results of taking a real quality

approach—understanding and managing the organisation as a system, as Deming prescribed—are nothing short of breathtaking. The journey of understanding the organisation as a system ignites different thinking about management; the challenges to thinking are inspirational.

Systems thinking

Service organisations that have taken this route have learned, as Deming taught, that there is no ‘balance’ between quality and cost – as quality improves costs fall. These leaders have discovered the folly of managing costs: through studying their organisations they learn how conventional cost management (activity times, standardi-sation, specialisation and so on), actually causes costs.

By learning how to manage the organisation as a system they have created adaptive, sustainable organisations focused unequivocally on serving customers’ needs. They have no need for an escalation procedure or complaint-handling standard. They have arrived at a different theory: as quality improves, costs fall and profi ts rise, creating growth and more jobs – just as Deming predicted.

There should be no place for the idea that you can improve your organisation by comparison with a model. Deming would have called it copying without theory. It is theory that makes quality unique, important, and – to give Deming a fi tting last word – profound.

Acknowledgement: This article was printed in the June 2012 issue of Qualityworld), the membership magazine of The Chartered Quality Institute, and is reproduced here with their kind permission.

I was very kindly invited by Dr Roland Jahnke, IAQ Academician and Chair of the IAQ’s Quality in Education Think Tank (QiETT), to give a presentation on New Zealand’s integrated education pathway for quality professionals, spanning from the NZOQ Certifi cate and Diploma in Quality Assurance through to Massey’s Graduate Diploma, Postgraduate Diploma and Master of Quality Systems. I was then able to take part as a panellist in a panel discussion on the theme “A big challenge: How can we contribute to a signifi cant improvement of quality and sustainability in Education of Asia Pacifi c?”

The symposium high point was an excellent keynote presentation (in terms of both delivery and content) given by Professor Shoji Shiba of Japan, a world-renowned authority in Breakthrough Management, who spoke about the Visionary Leaders for Manufacturing Program (VLFM) in India.

This is an innovative management transformation programme being implemented in collaboration with Japan International Cooperation Agency, to create a critical mass of Visionary Leaders to lead Indian manufacturing sector to future growth. It is being undertaken in collaboration between Indian Industry (Confederation of Indian Industry), Indian Academia (Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and Madras) and the Indian Government (National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council).

This radical project involves taking managers out of their work places for a year, putting them into a primary school classroom setting, imparting a sense of shared goals, vision and purpose, and educating them in the basic fundamentals of quality management. It is an exercise that New Zealand could potentially learn from, where management development continues to be both underfunded and undervalued.


continued from page 17

Nigel Grigg presents Dr Lotto Lai with his speaker’s certifi cate.

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Benchmarking past, present, and future

Why use benchmarking? Dr Robin Mann,

Director of the Centre for Organisational

Excellence Research (COER), Chairman of

the Global Benchmarking Network (GBN),

and Chairman of the Organising Committee

for the World Business Capability Congress1

explains:

Background

It is now over 20 years since the publication of the fi rst book on benchmarking by Dr Robert Camp (1989): Benchmarking: The Search for Industry Best Practices that lead to Superior Performance.

This was a ground-breaking book. It described a new methodology called ‘Benchmarking’ and how to apply it based on Dr Camp’s experience of managing the benchmarking programme within Xerox. The uniqueness of Xerox’s approach was that they moved from ‘competitive benchmarking’, which was principally used to examine manufacturing costs through product comparisons, to ‘non-competitive benchmarking’ which encompassed a 10-step methodology (fi gure 1).

Xerox recognised that in order to survive and grow they needed to do more than compare against competitors – what they needed to do was to develop superior practices from learning from best practices wherever they exist.

Stage Step Camp Model

Planning 1 Identify what is to be benchmarked

2 Identify comparative companies

3 Determine data collection method & collect data

Analysis 4 Determine current performance ‘gap’

5 Project future performance levels

Integration 6 Communicate benchmark fi ndings and gain acceptance

7 Establish functional goals

Action 8 Develop action plans

9 Implement specifi c actions & monitor progress

10 Re-calibrate benchmarks

Maturity Leadership position attainedPractices fully integrated into processes

Figure 1: 10-Step Benchmarking Methodology used by Xerox.

Between 1981 and 1989, Xerox undertook over 200 benchmarking projects, learning from the best. These included American Express (for billing and collection), Cummins Engines and Ford (for factory fl oor layout), Florida Power and Light (for quality improvement), Honda (for supplier development), Toyota (for quality management), Hewlett-Packard (for research and product development), Saturn (a division of General Motors) and Fuji Xerox (for manufacturing operations) and DuPont (for

manufacturing safety).

Xerox transformed itself from an organisation which was in danger of going out of business (their market share had plummeted from 86% in 1974 to just 17% in 1984) to one that became recognised as world-class. Xerox became the fi rst company to win both the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1989 and the European Quality Award in 1992. This transformation process from ‘crisis point’ to ‘world-class’ took 8 years.

Due to Xerox’s success, benchmarking became known worldwide. Figure 2 shows the rise in popularity of benchmarking from 1990 when there were only a few publications on the subject to over 350 per year in 1993. This number of publications has been maintained each year. This is quite unusual – most quality management techniques have followed a ‘fad cycle’ where they are popular for a few years and then their popularity declines.

The reason for the continuing popularity of benchmarking stems not only from its being a valuable improvement tool but also because key institutions actively promote it. The developers of both the EFQM Business Excellence Criteria and the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence position benchmarking as a key component of business excellence

1 Dr Robin Mann is the Head of the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research, New Zealand, www.coer.org.nz, Chairman of the “The World Business Capability Congress, www.worldbusinesscapabilitycongress.com, Dec 5-7, 2012, Auckland” – with the 7th International Benchmarking Conference being incorporated into the event. As part of the Congress there will be a Benchmarking Panel Discussion, New Zealand’s Best Practice Competition and Global Benchmarking Award, and a keynote presentation by Dr Robert Camp – honorary lifetime president of the Global Benchmarking Network.

Figure 2: Number of articles published in ProQuest (1990–2004) on tools and techniques (Thawesaengskulthai, N. and J. Tannock, 2008.)


– therefore bringing greater awareness of benchmarking to leading organisations around the world.

Also, the Global Benchmarking Network (GBN) was created in 1994 to promote and encourage its use worldwide. The GBN was formed by experts from benchmarking centres in Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States (with Dr Robert Camp serving as President). Since 1994, the GBN has helped organisations to learn about and use benchmarking methods and has now grown to a membership of 30 benchmarking centres representing over 20 countries.

Current status of benchmarking

In the last 20 years, benchmarking methodologies have evolved and technology has helped to make it easier to undertake. Most research studies in the last few years have identifi ed benchmarking as a top-fi ve tool in terms of popularity whilst respondents of the 2011, Bain and Co. study (Rigby et al, 2011) rated it as the No.1 tool in terms of usage and above average in terms of satisfaction – see Figure 3.

Research by the GBN (Mann et al, 2010) identifi ed a potential reason why satisfaction rates for benchmarking were not as high as some other techniques. It seems that organisations have widely different opinions on what benchmarking is and how to apply it, leading to a sizeable percentage of organisations recording poor returns from benchmarking.

According to the GBN study almost 30% of organisations that use benchmarking obtain an average return/saving per project of less than $15,000. This is in contrast to 20% obtaining an average return/saving per project of greater than $250,000 per project with some obtaining returns in the millions of pounds. The reason for this disparity in success was reported as:

• 25% of respondents that used benchmarking had not been trained in benchmarking and another 30% of respondents indicated that “only a few of the employees had received training or that training was rarely given”

• 30% of respondents that used benchmarking do not follow a particular benchmarking methodology when conducting benchmarking projects

• 25% of respondents do not follow (or rarely follow) a benchmarking code of conduct when undertaking a benchmarking project

• 30% of respondents “do not, rarely, or sometimes” develop a project brief for their benchmarking project specifying the aim, scope, sponsor, and members of the benchmarking team – thus indicating poor project planning

• 35% of respondents do not (or rarely) undertake a cost and benefi ts analysis of the project once it is completed.

One of the common problems is that many people consider benchmarking to be solely about comparison rather than learning from the practices of other organisations and adapting and implementing these practices. In recent years, the GBN has been promoting the following defi nitions of benchmarking to assist in its understanding.

Informal Benchmarking2 refers to benchmarking that does not follow a process or a procedure. It refers to the type of benchmarking that everyone does at work, often unconsciously, involving comparing and learning from the behaviour and practices of others. It can be used by everyone. Learning from informal benchmarking typically comes from the following:

2 A PhD research project started in June 2012 at COER, Massey University to investigate the use of Informal Benchmarking and how it can be undertaken more effectively. If you are interested in this research or being a case study organisation, please contact Robin ([email protected])

Figure 3: Usage and satisfaction of Management Tools and Techniques on a scale of one to fi ve (over 9,000 respondents worldwide) (Rigby et al, 2011).

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• Talking to work colleagues and learning from their experience.

• Consulting with experts who have experience of implementing a particular process or activity in many business environments.

• Networking with other people from other organisations at conferences, seminars, and Internet forums.

• On-line databases/web sites and publications that share benchmarking information provide quick and easy ways to learn of best practices and benchmarks.

Formal Benchmarking consists of two types – Performance Benchmarking and Best Practice Benchmarking. • Performance Benchmarking describes the comparison

of performance data obtained from studying similar processes or activities. Performance benchmarking may involve the comparison of fi nancial measures (such as expenditure, cost of labour, and cost of buildings/equipment) or non-fi nancial measures (such as absenteeism, staff turnover, complaints, and call centre performance).

• Best Practice Benchmarking describes the comparison of performance data obtained from studying similar processes or activities and identifying, adapting, and implementing the practices that produced the best performance results. The Xerox methodology can be described as a best practice benchmarking methodology.

Both Informal and Formal benchmarking can be used internally (learning inside the organisation), externally (learning from other organisations) or competitively (learning from competitors).

A recent development has been the move to professionalise the fi eld of benchmarking. New benchmarking methodologies are emerging that provide in-depth guidelines and instructions on how to do benchmarking well. One such methodology is COER’s TRADE best practice benchmarking methodology which focuses on the exchange (or “trade”) of information and best practices to improve the performance of processes, goods and services.

The TRADE methodology (see Figure 5) is not dissimilar to Xerox’s but the difference lies in its prescriptive nature. Underneath each of the 5 key stages are 4 to 9 steps that clearly describe what needs to be done before proceeding

to the next step and stage. Due to the clarity of the methodology, benchmarking teams are able to focus on the learning from the project rather than “what should be done next” as the methodology ensures that a professional research approach is undertaken. Without this discipline, projects are unlikely to be as successful, due to project teams focusing on issues without conducting a cost/benefi ts analysis or specifying clearly what they want to learn, and without obtaining buy-in from key stakeholders (projects often fail even when best practices are identifi ed, as key stakeholders have not been involved in the project and their commitment cannot be gained for implementation).

Another point of difference is the certifi cation scheme for TRADE. This certifi cation scheme ensures that individuals are adequately trained and can demonstrate their learning if they wish to facilitate or lead benchmarking projects, and is used in many countries. In Singapore it has become the preferred methodology for the state sector, with training programmes being run through the Civil Service College.

The use of benchmarking in tandem with business excellence has been a key reason for the transformation of Singapore into one of the world’s leading economies3. On most international benchmarks Singapore now rates in the top ten countries – for example: number 1 (NZ 3rd) for ease of doing business (2011), number 1 equal with NZ for transparency and accountability (2010), number 4 (NZ 10th)for education (2009), number 8 (NZ 10th) for digital economies (2010), seventh (NZ 13th) for life expectancy (2011), third (NZ 15th) for innovation (2011) and second (NZ 25th) for global competitiveness (2011).

Technological advancements have transformed communications and opened up a whole new information-based world. Any organisation can now access low-cost internet-based benchmarking services and opportunities such as consortia, surveys both on and off line, virtual common interest groups, best practice information resources and social networking sites for contacting potential benchmarking partners. These resources are a real boon to organisations that want to access best practices and expert advice/opinion but do not have the resources for full-scale benchmarking projects4.

Due to the advances in benchmarking we now have organisations which have become world-class in 3 years (it took Xerox 8 years). For example, Boeing Aerospace Support which transformed itself from an average company

Figure 5: TRADE best practice benchmarking methodology.

3 At the World Business Capability Congress, Freddy Soon, Chair of the Singapore Quality Award Management Committee will talk about the role of business excellence in Singapore’s success. In addition, there will be a presentation by Chief Judge Tan on how business excellence transformed the Judiciary to become one of the world’s best.

4 The Business Improvement Performance Resource (BPIR.com), developed by COER, is a resource that provides valuable support to benchmarking projects.

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in 2000, scoring 300 points against the Baldrige Criteria, to over 700 points (a world-class score) in 2003 when they won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

In December 2009, I was lucky enough to talk to David Spong, who led Boeing Aerospace Support during this period. He described how benchmarking was central to its achievements. He explained that fi rstly, best practices were transferred from the Boeing Airlift and Tanker Program, winners of the 1998 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, to Boeing Aerospace Support. Secondly, a system was set up so that all the business units within Boeing Aerospace Support could benchmark their performance and learn from each other. To do this, he had all the business units undertake assessments against the Baldrige Criteria. All the assessment scores were then compared. This enabled the business units to identify which business units to learn from for each Baldrige category. Lastly, the business units were encouraged to look outside their industry and learn from the best in other industries. By being able to utilise the new communication technologies this was much easier to do for Boeing than for Xerox.

The next twenty years

So how will benchmarking develop in the next 20 years? This question is currently being asked by the GBN as part of a research project5. This project is exploring the likely role of benchmarking in the future through considering Megatrends affecting governance, political, social and environmental issues. The project intends to answer the following questions: What will benchmarking look like in 2030 – and in between? What are the tools, methodologies and technologies that benchmarkers will use to help organisations and economies to improve?

Undoubtedly technology will play an increasing part in benchmarking enabling organisations to share benchmarks and best practices more quickly and all over the world. With advances in communication technology it will be interesting to see how individuals and organisations cope with the increase in data and information. Some commentators have indicated that our attention span will become shorter because there will not be enough time to review each piece of information. In my own experience of managing a best practice resource, www.bpir.com, we have seen this already. To cater for this the BPIR.com has moved from solely written content to on-line networking and now to video content. With video content, best practices can be more quickly understood and assessed for relevance.

The speed with which businesses want solutions and best practices is expected to accelerate. The providers of benchmarking services need to acknowledge this. I was recently in India attending a BestPrax Club event that was tremendously successful. At this event 16 organisations were given 10 minutes to share three best practices. At the end of

10 minutes a buzzer sounded and the presenter had to leave the stage. In a few hours, 48 practices were shared! These were then judged, and seven best practices were selected as the winners. This type of ‘X Factor’ event undoubtedly appeals to the masses and is a great way to quickly learn of good- to best practices6.

The other innovative aspect of the India event was that Suresh Lulla of the BestPrax Club had visited each organisation to ‘harvest’ best practices prior to the event to help each organisation identify what they were good at. This harvesting process was seen as of tremendous benefi t to all the participants as it was rewarding and motivational to be told that they had a good practice. Usually, consultants, evaluators and auditors search for non-compliance or opportunities for improvement and managers and employees are often on the defensive as it can be uncomfortable to receive negative feedback. The GBN plans to explore the harvesting and nurturing of best practices further and see how these concepts can be used more widely.

In the future, it is envisaged that benchmarking will help organisations and economies to improve at a faster rate. Whilst the speed of exchanging information (and therefore benchmarking) will increase, we need to ensure that organisational decisions are based on sound judgement.

I am convinced that a disciplined approach using a benchmarking methodology will always have its place alongside an informal approach to benchmarking. The challenge for organisations will be to decide which type of benchmarking to do. It is likely that a disciplined approach will be required for the largest opportunities for improvement, where speed to identify benchmarks and learn from other organisations (say, for instance, through site visits) is not as critical but where breakthrough improvements could have a huge impact on the bottom-line. Faster approaches will be used for issues and opportunities that need to be tackled in a shorter period of time, with the understanding that faster approaches are riskier and less likely to produce as large a gain.


ReferencesRigby, D., & Bilodeau, B. (2011). Management Tools and Trends 2011. Bain and

Co. http://www.bain.com/management_tools/home.asp. Mann, R.S., Kohl. H., & et al. (2010). GBN Survey Results: Business Improvement

and Benchmarking, Global Benchmarking Network. www.globalbenchmarking.org.

Thawesaengskulthai, N., & Tannock, J. (2008). Fashion Setting in Quality Management and Continuous Improvement. Int. Studies of Mgt. & Org., vol. 38, no. 2, Summer 2008, pp. 5-24.

Further reading

Camp, R. (1989). Benchmarking. The Search for Industry Best Practices That Lead to Superior Performance. Productivity Press

Website: Business Performance Improvement Resource, www.bpir.com – benchmarks and best practices.

Website: Global Benchmarking Network, www.globalbench-marking.org – listing organisations that are the main promoters/ experts in benchmarking.

5 At the World Business Capability Congress there will be a special Global Benchmarking Network Panel Session discussing the future of benchmarking.

6 At the World Business Capability Congress there will be over 20 quick–fi re best practice presentations from entrants to the New Zealand Best Practice Competition.

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ANQ Congress 2012Between 31st July and 3rd August, a small delegation

from NZOQ attended the 2012 Asian Network for Quality

(ANQ) annual quality congress in Hong Kong, writes

QNewZ columnist Nigel Grigg.

ANQ is a network consisting of quality organisations from 17 (predominantly Asian) countries, including several from within the former Soviet Union. NZOQ is honoured to be a member of ANQ, representing the Oceania region. In this capacity we have attended previous ANQ congresses in Japan (2009) and Vietnam (2011).

The ANQ congress was co-hosted this year by the China Association for Quality (represented by Chairman Mr Qi Weiming), Hong Kong Society for Quality (represented by Dr Lotto Lai), and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Kowloon (represented by Prof. Fugee Tsung). This year’s theme was “Striving for Excellence through Product and Service Quality”. Over 150 parallel papers were presented, organised into themes such as quality tools and industry applications, data quality and information analysis, environmental and green operations, quality and innovation, lean and six sigma methodology, quality culture / philosophies and quality education and training. I gave a presentation based on a Massey University Master of Quality Systems project undertaken by student Mohammad AlShadiefat, on sustaining Lean and Six Sigma in New Zealand’s health care sector.

In last October’s issue of QNewZ I reported on my visit to the Vietnam congress. While I was the only NZOQ representative at the Vietnam conference, this year we had a delegation of fi ve: Helen Baines (General Manager), Tony Stephenson (President), Robin and Margaret Corner (NZOQ members and directors of Hong Kong-based educational agency Eagle English) and I (also representing, and jointly funded by, Massey University).

For the past year, Robin and Margaret Corner have been liaising on NZOQ’s behalf with the Hong Kong Quality Management Association (HKQMA) with the objective of establishing a partnership between NZ and HK/China in relation to the provision of quality training and education, and mutual recognition of professional status. This mutual recognition extends to the Certifi ed Quality Manager (CQM) and Lean Six Sigma Green and Black Belt certifi cation processes.

During the congress, Robin and Margaret arranged meetings with delegations from the China Association for Quality (CAQ); Shenzhen Association for Quality (SAQ); Hong Kong Quality Management Association (HKQMA); Chinese Society for Quality (CSQ) Taiwan; China Institute for Quality Excellence (CIQE) and others. They also kindly provided the services of Chinese interpreter, Dr Edmund Fu.

During these meetings we discussed major developments in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China in relation to Quality management. Central issues pertain to standardisation and food safety. In other words, the certifi cation of products to ensure they are safe, legal and unadulterated. The same applies to building and construction.

IAG Symposium

The conference was followed by a one-day symposium hosted by the International Academy for Quality (IAQ) on 3rd August, at City University of Hong Kong. IAQ is a group of the world’s leading academics and practitioners in the fi eld of quality. Membership is limited to 75, and is by invitation only. The theme of the symposium was: “New challenges: Quality and Sustainability in Education of Asia Pacifi c”. The symposium addressed both sides of this equation: providing education in quality; and providing quality in education.

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Members of NZOQ, Eagle English, ANQ and CAQ at the closing banquet.


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e Benchmarking and league tables in education In my August column I described the importance

of the right measures to make improvements

within an organisation, writes QNewZ

columnist, Sarah Benjamin. In this column I am

going to focus on benchmarking in education.

Public Sector and targets

It is very evident that we operate within a Public Sector regime that uses targets as a means to ‘improve’, understand and report on such as the Prime Minister’s announcements about the intended improvement to Public Services through the use of targets.

These targets are being used in education for benchmarking, against national standards. League tables are then used to publish and publicly recognise those who are ‘achieving’ and to give parents a better understanding and education choices for their children.

But do they work? Do we really recognise the effect of targets on the work and the ability they have to sub-optimise performance in light of the achievement of them? And is this what we want for our public services?

In all the work that Vanguard Consulting has done with organisations over the last 25 years, we have yet to fi nd a work system that is not severely sub-optimised by targets. It drives the focus of those in the work to the achievement of a number (usually fairly arbitrary in design) over and above the needs of the customer – in this case, the child to be educated.

Benchmarks in education

This year the Ministry of Education demanded all schools submit achievement data by 31 May, 2012. In January the NZEI President, Ian Leckie commented in the Dominion Post1 that: “Schools might withhold student achievement statistics if the government does not prevent national standards information being used to create league tables ... It's a top-of-mind issue and worry for principals, teachers and schools as we go into the 2012 school year. They know that national standards data is inconsistent and that each school is interpreting the standards differently. Aggregating that data into national or local league tables that give the impression of ranking school effectiveness would be unfair."

Mr Leckie added that the league tables would penalise lower-decile schools, and result in unhealthy competition between schools, the likely ‘massaging’ of student achievement information and teachers tailoring their lessons to what will arise in the tests. I agree with Mr Leckie. It is highly likely that there will be the massaging of information and manipulation of both fi gures and students to ‘achieve’ good results.

His concerns were further voiced by Otago University's College of Education senior lecturer Darrell Latham, who is “worried New Zealand's broad curriculum would be narrowed because teachers would ‘teach to the test’ to ensure their school got a good pass mark. There will be drilling to pass the exam".

This view was also echoed by Paparoa Street School principal and New Zealand Principals' Federation vice-president Philip Harding. Here is a quote dated 9 July2: “Harding said if schools were publicly judged solely on their National Standards pass rate, they would put more emphasis on getting low-achieving pupils up to the standard rather than pushing their top pupils.”

This would be typical of what is experienced. Although usually those at the bottom of such tables are left there, as the level of work involved to bring them up to speed is too great. Neither do you need to worry about those at the top, they are likely to achieve anyway, and therefore, as Mr Harding points out, will not be pushed academically.

It is the middle-of-the-road pupils who receive attention in order to make the numbers. But as Darrell Latham commented, they will simply be drilled to pass the exam; this does not constitute the same thing as being equipped to educate themselves.

On target to achieve nothing

Targets, standards, benchmarking of any kind has the same result, as Professor John Seddon explains in his article On Target to Achieve Nothing3:

“The fact is that targets don’t help us get to where we want to be. Worse, they actually obviate the possibility by making people focus on the wrong things. In the police,schools, health service and local authorities, targets are hindering performance rather than fostering improvement.

The whole idea of targets is fl awed – their use in a hierarchical system engages peoples’ ingenuity in managing the numbers instead of improving their methods. Peoples’ attention turns to being seen to meet the targets – fulfi lling the bureaucratic requirements of reporting that which they have become ‘accountable’ for – at the expense of achieving the organisation’s purpose.

In simple terms, all this effort constitutes and causes waste – ineffi ciency, poor service and, worst of all, low morale.

Instead of targets people need measures that lead to questions of method – ‘How can we do this better?’ ”

There are endless case studies and papers available, all detailing the danger of the use of such targets. Professor John Seddon wrote an entire book documenting the damage done to the UK Public Services through the use of targets and the price that is now being paid .

League tables assume the data they contain is the same: clean and comparable. In truth it is unlikely to be, so it begs the question: how reliable is the information we are giving to parents on which to base a good decision? And more importantly, what is it doing to the education system?


1 http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/6333328/Schools-may-not-reveal-scores-union-says

2 http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/7242859/League-tables-can-be-misleading-expert

3 www.systemsthinking.co.uk


Malco

lm’s m

emo

standards rule, ok?

That this issue of QNewZ celebrates World

Standards Day, the 80th birthday of Standards

New Zealand and the 25th anniversary of

ISO 9000 all at the same time is a wondrous

thing, writes QNewZ columnist, Malcolm

Macpherson.

It’s tempting, being an occasional contrarian, to do a John Seddon and rain on this parade. John is,for those unfamiliar with his pedigree, a celebrated and self-proclaimed ISO-buster; the man who asserts that the ISO series does irreparable harm to British (and by extension,

World) commerce. So much so that he’s written his own version, on the basis that if you have to adopt a standard, at least it’ll be ‘systems thinking’-focused. A detailed third-party comparison of the two would probably qualify its author for a PhD. Arcane is one way of describing it.

Let’s not go down that path. In a world of international supply chains, where a number of different OEMs contribute to something as magical as the iPhone, commonly agreed standards obviously matter.

But what about at the other end of the business spectrum, workplaces of just a few people, rubbing along as best they can, making things up as they go? Or the non-manufacturing world – say, healthcare – where every event is unique and every patient journey different?

I know something about small workplaces – from direct experience and from a governor’s perspective, across a number of sectors, including healthcare – and the big milestones celebrated in this issue got me thinking about ‘standards’ in their context.

A new small enterprise – a startup – is the last place you’d look for standardisation, right? Quick on their feet, innovating

till the pips squeak, much more worried about viability than consistency, a start-up won’t even have standard operating procedures, let alone time for ISO. Well, how about – wrong!

There is a counter argument that start-ups should begin with SOPs, and if more did, fewer would die early. Rather than stifl ing early innovation, some standardisation (OK, maybe not the full nine yards) might build security, reputation and

discipline, when all three are needed most.

A settled small business? A dozen people who all sit in the same tearoom every day? Isn’t the idea of standardisation a bit silly? Wrong again. It’s precisely because they rub shoulders every day that common understandings that are explicit, not implicit – even if it only extends to having proper meetings with an agenda and a record-keeper – are just as necessary.

And a service industry like healthcare? One reason – some say the major reason – why hospital costs are going through the roof is precisely because nurses, doctors, and allied health workers, and their managers, treat every patient interaction as a unique event, effectively creating a separate process for each one. The growing implementation of Lean methodologies in this sector, especially in the USA and the UK, is showing what should have been obvious – many interactions at the level of the individual patient are predictable, and high levels of standardisation are not only possible, but enormously benefi cial.

So, all hail the international standard. There’s much to celebrate, but lots more still to do.


RACI – defining attributesIan Hendra’s column in the July and September issues of QNewZ referred to the RACI table. Unfortunately it contained

some errors. Here is the corrected table.

Factor Defi ning attributes

Responsible • Highest authority with respect to this process,• Authorised to make changes to the process,• Can’t delegate responsibility (but can delegate accountability),• Has power to spend money (or someone else is responsible in reality),• Has power to hire &fi re (or someone else is responsible in reality).• Required to make sure resources and supplies are available.

Accountable • Authorised to make sure this process is implemented,• If delegated, may have the power to spend, hire & fi re,• Does not have the authority to change the process without consultation.

Consulted • Has expert information that affects the performance of this process,• Is affected by the upstream or downstream performance of this process. • Must be consulted when changes are made.

Consulted • Needs to understand what this process entails and how it might affect them. • Must be informed when changes are made.

Table 1: RACI - defi ning attributes

Conferences2012

NZOQ/COER/NZBEF: World Business Capability Congress 2012, Auckland

Date: 5 to 7 December, 2012.For further information visitwww.nzoq.org.nz

NZOQ Training Calendar 2012 DIPLOMA OF QUALITY ASSURANCEExpressions of interest to: [email protected] CERTIFICATE IN QUALITY ASSURANCE Courses: 501, 502, 503, 504, 505, and 506

INTERNAL AUDITING (2 days) (Wed/Thurs)14 - 15 November, Auckland

QUALITY SYSTEMS AUDITING (5 day block course)15 - 19 October, Christchurch

YELLOW BELT SIX SIGMA (incorporating Lean) 24 - 26 October Auckland

GREEN BELT LEAN SIX SIGMA (2 x 1 week block course) 08 - 12 October & 05 - 09 November Auckland

BLACK BELT UP-GRADE LEAN SIX SIGMA (intensive)26 - 30 November, Auckland

ISO 31000 RISK MANAGEMENT - (An Integrated Approach) Expressions of interest to: [email protected]

BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENTTHE EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF PROJECTS (2 days) Expressions of interest to: [email protected]

ISO 9001 - MANAGEMENT BRIEF (half day in-house)QUALITY HEALTHCARE PRACTICAL SKILLS QUALITY MANAGEMENT PRACTICAL SKILLS Expressions of interest to: [email protected]

For further information and to enrol please contact Tess Stewart atNZOQ National Offi ce, Tel 06 351 4407 or [email protected]

ADVANCE YOUR QUALITY CAREEROpen Polytechnic’s new Certificate in Quality Assurance (Level 5), in association with the New Zealand Organisation for Quality (NZOQ), is New Zealand’s only qualification focusing specifically on quality assurance.

If you are responsible for delivering business improvement in your workplace, or are interested in a career in quality assurance, the Certificate will provide you with quality assurance guiding principles and expert knowledge you need to advance your career.

Studying with Open Polytechnic means you can choose when and where you study. With our flexible options you can even choose to speed up your study and achieve your study goals faster.

Enrolments are open, so what are you waiting for?

Visit openpolytechnic.ac.nz/qualityassurance or call us on freephone 0508 650 200

For more information on NZOQ visit nzoq.org.nz

whwherere yoou study.udyd

New CQMs

Dr Gavin Chau Ka YinDr Mark Chan Man WongDr Frankie Lam Kin Sun

Dr Chan Yuk KauCheung Kam Chi

Dr Victor Leung Wai KeungDr Francis Kua Yee Hong

Dr Perry Ip Yun KitDr Freeman Chan Kin Hong

New members

Corporate - Central

Transfi eld Worley Ltd

Northern

Terry Leydon, Melissa MacCormick, Vikki Wells

Canterbury

Michelle Ocampo

Featuring: CCongratulationsongratulations HKQMA DDiane ...2 | Official Magazine of the New Zealand Organisation for Quality – October 2012 World Business Capability Congress 2012

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