Management and Quality Services

The Excellence Model

This is a standard of excellent organisational performance and a highly structured scheme whereby any organisation can measure how its operational performance compares with the best around. It is both a national and international standard of organisational excellence with a range of award categories.

Carshaw can help organisations large and small to assess their scores in three different ways:

a)     by proforma scoring individually or in groups
b)     by team activity scoring using a card system
c)     by questionnaire completion individually or in groups

The scores for each of the 9 sections of the model can then be related to the critical success factors of the organisation and a detailed improvement action plan can be derived. Spin-off benefits of working through self-assessment include a clearer understanding of the purpose and goals of the organisation, plus better teamwork, greater commitment and improved levels of communication.


Investors in People

This is a national standard of organisational quality recognised throughout the UK where it has been actively sponsored by the government. It is based upon a planned approach to:

Setting and communicating organisational goals
Developing people to meet these goals

So that

What people can do and are motivated to do
Matches what the organisation needs them to do

The standard has a strong common-sense appeal and has a simple structure and an uncomplicated assessment process. It has been successfully applied across a wide range of private and public sector organisations ranging from very small to very large. It has gained broad acceptance and is highly prized my the winners of the award.


Investors in Excellence

Carshaw works in support of Midlands Excellence to help in assessing their clients towards another award for excellent performance as a part of the UK Excellence Recognition Programme. For more details, go to www.midlandsexcellence.org.uk


ISO Family of Management Systems

There are several ISO standards that adopt the same framework and structure but have a difference in their focus. These managemenst systems are:

• ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management Systems - Requirements
• ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management Systems - Requirements with guidance for use
• ISO 22000:2005 Food Safety Management Systems - Requirements
• ISO 27001:2005 Information Technology - Security techniques - Information security management systems - Requirements

(OHSAS 18001:1999 Occupational health & safety management systems - Specification. While OHSAS is not strictly speaking a ISO standard, it does provide a management system for occupational health and safety with the same framework and structure as the above ISO standards)

These systems all adopt a process approach to management, employ the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) improvement cycle and they require that risk assessments are carried out. They also have similar requirements in terms of processes for:

• Document and data control
• Records control
• Control of non-conformities
• Corrective actions
• Preventative actions
• Internal systems auditing
• Competence and training
• Management reviews
• Continual improvement

Carshaw offers qualified, in-depth and experienced support in the implementation, maintenance and auditing of these ISO management systems and has a 100% success rate in implementing many dozens of systems across various sectors since 1987.


Risk Assessments

Carshaw can provide on-site risk assessments in the UK as required by the above Standards; such assessments also include a summary of priority improvement actions that would be recommended.

Also, Carshaw can provide on-site training in risk assessment customized to clients' specific requirements, including all templates, forms and procedures. This training is activity-based and addresses real issues, like most other Carshaw training.


ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management Systems

The latest version of this standard - ISO 9001:2000 - is based upon 8 fundamental quality management principles available free from www.iso.ch. The new standard applies to the WHOLE organisation (rather than selected parts) and the customer-facing activities are specifically included which was not specified previously.

All the organisation's integrated processes need to be defined and documented, plus they need to have specified objectives and process measures. Measures of customer feedback also need to be in place.

This Standard also specifies the need for a quality manual plus 6 mandatory procedures as above. It all needs to hang together and operate like a joined up management system to bring about continual improvement.

Carshaw's ISO 9001 systems contribute successfully to the improved efficiency and operations of any organization.


ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management System

Organisations are increasingly requiring to demonstrate effective concern for their environmental performance and sustainability - often because of pressures applied through the supply chain. As with ISO 9001, many larger customers are now demanding that their suppliers have some independently-assessed environmental management system. ISO 14001 provides such a system (EMAS is another system).

In simple terms, ISO 14001 requires an organisation to:

Control its impact* on the environment
(* An impact is any change to the environment - whether adverse or beneficial - wholly or partly resulting from business activities - products and services)

The organisation needs to explain - in writing - how it goes about controlling its impacts on the environment, provide evidence of doing it, recording what has happened and learning from the experience.

All businesses cause changes in the environment because they deplete energy sources and raw materials (often both are not renewable) and they generate products and waste materials (emissions to air, water and soil).

Identifying and assessing the significance of environmental impacts is a critical stage in the organisation's preparation for ISO 14001. This is usually achieved following a preparatory environmental review and the assessment itself must use methodology that is robust and technically sound. Everything else follows from this. Carshaw provides qualified support (consultancy and training) to clients who need help with this.

The requirements of ISO 14001 include:

• Development of an environmental policy that makes a senior management commitment to comply with appropriate legislation, minimise pollution, document its operations and continually improve the organisation's environmental performance
• Identifying the organisation's significant environmental impacts
• Establishing a relevant legal and regulatory framework
• Development and maintenance of environmental objectives and targets
• Appropriate awareness and understanding by the organisation's staff
• Implementation of a structured and controlled documented system, including mandatory procedures, work instructions, elements of training, operational controls and dealing with abnormal and emergency situations
• Monitoring and measurement of operational activities, including controls
• Environmental internal auditing
• Reviews of the system to ensure its continuing effectiveness and suitability

Organisations that have experience of ISO 9000 systems will find meeting these requirements relatively straightforward but there are some unique and major differences that ISO 14001 brings.


ISO 22000:2005 Food Safety Management Systems

ISO 22000 provides guidelines for a hazard analysis approach combined with pre-requisite requirements to provide a framework to manage a food safety system and improve business processes in your food production operations.

ISO 22000 is an international standard developed by the Food Industry for the Food Industry. It aims to harmonize the requirements for food safety management throughout the food supply chain. Its development is driven by the increase in global trade, a wider variety of food products growing the number of customer safety concerns, and increased demands for companies to use food safety systems.

The standard incorporates the 7 Dutch HACCP principles of food safety. It also aligns with the 8 quality management clauses of ISO 9000:2000. Hence, ISO 22000 brings together the elements of safety and quality into the production of food products.

The advantage of this certification is that it uses food safety from HACCP principles as a baseline to help drive ISO 9000 quality management guidelines into the improvement of business processes associated with food production. The improved processes strengthen productivity efficiencies through waste reduction, lower production costs, greater responsibility and quality consciousness amongst staff, better use of time and resources, lower product failure rate, and greater consistency and traceability of products throughout the supply chain, all of which is accomplished with food safety assurance.

Additional benefits of the ISO 22000 standard include:

• Applicability to manufacturers and all other participants in the global food supply chain;
• It is auditable; and
• It enables communications about hazards with supply chain partners.

In the UK, the British Retail Consortium Packaging standard has proved the standard of choice in the UK food industry and was developed because it was felt hat the earlier ISO 9000 systems did not properly address food safety and hygiene concerns.

Carshaw can assist with all Food Safety Standards, including the European Food Safety Directive EU 852.


ISO 27001:2005 Information Technology Management Systems

Based upon the earlier BS7799, this standard should apply - at least in principle - to all modern organizations that rely upon Information Technology for their routine operation. However, the uptake of certifications has been rather limited and may remain that way unless and until large purchasing organizations specify that they require such information security management systems from their preferred suppliers, as has happened with ISO 9001 and increasingly with 14001. This is in spite of the obvious benefits of having an effective IT and Information management system in place.

Where ISO 27001 scores above the other members of the ISO Management Systems family is that it includes a comprehensive checklist (in Annex A) of issues that need to be controlled; none of the other family members are this prescriptive.


Internal Auditor Training (ISO 190011:2002)

Carshaw's internal auditor training has a very interactive workshop style that covers all the essentials of auditing of the above ISO Management Systems. What makes it unique is that:

a) it deals specifically with auditor and auditee behaviours
b) it addresses the requirements of both process (performance) and compliance auditing
c) it includes one or more live audits of the client's management system

Everyone completing this training needs to demonstrate that they have performed at least one live audit to the trainer's satisfaction; for this they receive a certificate of competence.


Integration of ISO Management Systems

In principle, because the above managements systems all use a similar framework, they can be integrated with each other in almost any combination. This can save appreciable amounts of time and effort, and can make the integrated system more businesslike. For example, if an organisation has an existing Quality Management System that meets ISO 9001, it can build upon that by adding the necessary processes to cater for health, safety, environmental and other requirements of management system standards.

These additional processes include:

• risk assessment - this should address safety risks, environmental impacts and process failure modes.
• regulations management - this should cover the capture of regulations on environment, health, safety, security, etc and their analysis and impact
• continual improvement - this should focus on specific improvement programmes such as safety, environmental and security improvement
• public awareness - this should address the notification aspects of health, safety and environment

If the organisation does not currently have any of these ISO systems in place, it is recommended that a process engineering approach is taken. This approach starts by looking at the business as a whole and establishing its purpose, mission and the core and support processes which achieve this mission. The steps which follow on from this are as follows:

• flowchart or process map the organisation's processes (ie core and support processes)
• analyse the organisation's processes and decide the key success factors (for process inputs) and KPIs (for process outputs)
• document operational policies which will govern the processes and use these to define process objectives (it may also be helpful to assign process owners for accountability)
• develop procedures to control each business process which define who does what where, when and how
• capture existing documentation and identify documentation needs by linking the existing documents to the control procedures
• co-ordinate the documentation and implement the system

With this approach, existing descriptions of processes, tasks etc are in use when they serve the process objective. If they do not they should be discarded and rewritten.


More FREE information


Page Index
Carshaw Management & Quality Ltd 4 Hutchinson Close, Rugeley, Staffs WS15 2RG
England
Tel: 0044 (0)1889 584147 - Fax: 0044 (0)1889 585416

Top of Page

This Page address: http://www.ldb.co.uk/carshaw/carshaw3.htm
Published by:   Lichfield Web Design