Every second shipment
was delayed and the invoices were never correct. Those were the experiences I
had as a client of one freight-company in Sweden in the late 1980s. What was
special with this company? They were pioneers in the implementation of an ISO
9000 certified quality management system.
When I first implemented a quality management system some 23
years ago, it was new and fresh, and seemed like a good idea. I mean, who could
possibly oppose a focus on quality, and approaching quality in a systematic way
through a management system? The approach really suited my personality of an
introvert system designer. Just write down how things should be done; do; check
that it is working and revise if it isn’t; then repeat the cycle. However, over
the years I have grown more and more cynical about the use of such systems, and
in particular how the belief in them is like a dogma that can’t be questioned.
What is a QMS
There are many definitions of quality management systems (QMS). It can
be ‘A set of coordinated activities to direct and control an organisation in
order to continually improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its
performance’. Alternatively, it can be “A system by which an organisation aims to
reduce and eventually eliminate nonconformance to specifications, standards,
and customer expectations in the most cost effective and efficient manner.’ The latter is at least a bit more modest about
what a QMS can deliver, or should deliver.
In my view, the time is overdue to challenge this management
idea, to expose it as just another fad, loaded with jargon and promoted by a
hoard of consultants (including myself), certification bodies and accreditation
bodies who earn their living from it. My objections to it are based on two
different issues; on the one hand it is based on some erroneous principles or
assumptions and on the other hand, even if it were useful, the positive effects
are not big enough to justify the energy spent. What I am discussing here is
quality management as a management principle. Clearly, I have no objections to
quality, how could I? After all, quality is anything you define. I also have no
objections to ‘management systems’, how could I? All organisations are managed
according to one or the other system, documented or not, good or bad. But those
who have spent weeks writing manuals and training staff etc know what I am talking
about, the quality management system (QMS).
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| Proudly certified! |
The main standard for quality management is the ISO 9000
standards. ISO 9000 was first published in 1987. It was based on the BS 5750 series of
standards from the British Standards Institute. However, its history can be
traced back some twenty years earlier to a US Department of Defense standard in
1959, which was aimed at ensuring bombs go off at the target and not in the
hangars or in the factory – a laudable effort (not for the targets, though). The
concept of the ISO 9000 has spread into a wide range of other standards, such
as the ISO 14000 series for environmental management, the ISO 22000 for food
quality management and the ISO 65 for certification bodies and ISO 17011 for
accreditation bodies.
Despite its rapid uptake in various industries quality
management is not a proven method. Agreed, there are many reports and statement
from quality managers, and consultants and certification bodies about how good
quality management is. However, very little peer-reviewed research has been
conducted that evaluates whether the system delivers what it promises to do, that
is, consistent quality. And there has been even less work done to prove that it
delivers general management benefits, which proponents claim most often. One study
in Australia and New Zealand did
look at the effect of ISO 9000.
1 The central finding of the project
was that ‘on average
ISO 9000 certification has little or no
explanatory power of organisational performance.
Another
study reports that ‘However, surprisingly no significant difference is found
with respect to defective part production and manufacturing cost between the
two groups [those who had a QMS and those that hadn’t].’
We are told to put quality first, but what does that really
mean? Is quality more important than following the law? How does it relate to
workers’ safety, the environment or, the most obvious factor in organisations, profit?
The quality management culture is based on the fact that there are special
quality manuals and a special quality system. But organisations are not managed
by these kinds of manuals, and controllers and financial departments work with a
different logic. Where does that really leave quality management? Instead of
acknowledging the contradictions and different interests in an organisation,
QMS proponents spread the illusion that the QMS is the most important part of
the management system, which is at best delusional.
The starting point in the development of a quality system is,
almost exclusively, the standard itself, and all the issues required by the
standard. This is in itself a very bad starting point. ‘Planners of quality
systems, guided by ISO 9000, start with a view of how the world should be as
framed by the Standard. Understanding how an organisation works, rather than
how someone thinks it should, is a far better place from which to start a change
of any kind’ says British management consultant, John Seddon.
QMSs are based on a view that people perform better when
told what to do, rather than when they are given freedom and motivation. They
exaggerate the use of written instructions at the expense of social interaction
and continuous problem solving. This degrades people to automata, a development
that risks the quality in their work and ultimately the performance of the organisation.
Even good systems take considerable time and energy to
implement. Consequently their implementation competes for resources and
attention, resulting in less energy and attention orientated to other (real)
problems within the organisation. In addition, QMSs discriminate against small firms
as they are more costly to implement while the potential benefit is even less
than in a big firm.
While a well functioning QMS might be good for operations, they
are often badly designed and implemented, and thus are likely to do more harm
than good. An organisation with shelves full of files telling people what to do
and how to do it, with a workforce that disregards the policies, is worse off
than a company with very few policies, which are vigorously enforced and
promoted, and grounded in the organisation’s culture. Many organisations
implement a QMS because they ‘have to’ – as a result of demands from the
clients or from other outside parties – and not because they see the value of
them. Again a very bad starting point for good implementation.
And finally, there are the audits of quality management
systems. The actual quality of the product or service is not included in an audit
or assessment. Auditors look into systems, procedures and organisational
structures, and very little at implementation. Increasingly, audits look at ‘meta-systems’,
that is the systems used to develop and maintain the system, for instance,
internal audits. Here it follows the footsteps of financial audits, which also
has gone from checking the actual books, stocks and assets to auditing the
system. This has been well analysed, and criticised, by Michael Power in the
book Rituals of Verification. Power
says that most effort is actually spent on making the systems auditable, and
not on making them reliable.
In the organic sector, where I have a lot of first hand
experience all from farming to accreditation of certification bodies, conformity
assessment has moved towards focusing on ‘auditable performance’. Quality
management is enforced all along the food chain, from the accreditor to the
farms; every level expects the next level to implement a QMS. QMS in
accreditation demands QMS in certification, which in turn demands QMS on farms.
On the farm level this is not as yet formulated in demands for fully fledged
QMS, but the tendency to enforce QMS style demands on farms and even more on
food processors is clear. Real control is rarely made – this was pointed out in
a recent report by the European Court of audits of the EU control systems, and
it was pointed out by the Swedish Food Authority some years ago. It is clear
that audits don’t address, detect or prevent fraud to any larger extent. When
blatant mistakes are made – if the mistake is even detected – the “corrective
action” is mostly to insist on more
quality management policies or written procedures, which are actually
counterproductive.
In certain situations a QMS can be useful, even very useful,
for organisations, but that does not
imply a QMS is good for all organisations. Nor does it suggest that a
functioning QMS contributes to the integrity of the system in general. Instead
they should be seen as one of many tools organisations use to manage themselves
and the service they offer; a tool that suits some much better than others because
all organisations differ in size, culture, resources and stability.
Footnotes:
1. The Business Value of Quality Management Systems
Certification. Evidence from Australia and New Zealand, Samson, D. Terziovski, M. Dow, D. Journal of
Operations Management Vol. 15, No. 1, 1997, pp. 1-18
2. The impact of ISO 9000 quality management systems on
manufacturing, Tufan Koc, Journal of Materials Processing Technology Volume
186, Issues 1–3, 7 May 2007, Pages 207–213
Swedish
article about the quality management craze:
Update: 22 January, I have another article about quality management published in
Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish).
'This book presents a powerful narrative
overview of the human condition in the 21st century. In the decades ahead, our
species must navigate the end of fossil fuels and economic growth as we've
known it — a tall order by any estimation. The risks are great, but so are the
potential rewards if Rundgren's advice is heeded and humanity embraces a
post-carbon, post-industrial culture.' 
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