MIREAUX'S ISO VANGUARD BLOG

Walruses, Walruses. Are you sure the procedures your organization is using represent your organization’s processes? Using process mapping concepts to develop accurate procedures.

info@mireauxms.com — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:24:00 GMT

If you know the story of BP's spill response plan, chances are, you know it talked about saving walruses, sea lions and more walruses. While that is all fine in paper, now that the spill disaster has happened, the plan proved not only to be flawed but false. To begin with, the plan was big on saving walruses and sea lions -which as one of the congressman pointed out, have not lived in the Gulf area for nearly 300 years. To compound matters worse, the spill response plans from Exxon, Shell and Texaco read almost exactly the same as if they had all been written, bought or copied from the same source. This proves a point that I have long made, and that is, procedures have to match the company processes, and each organization has their own set of processes which is different than that of their neighbor.

Category: ISO Consulting

Category: Document Control and Records

Category: Continual Improvement

Category: Proces Mapping

Category: Quality Management System

We are just a service company, why do they need us to be ISO 9001 certified?

info@mireauxms.com — Fri, 28 May 2010 20:14:00 GMT

Are you a service provider selling project management services, engineering or IT services? Have you been asked more than once whether you are ISO 9001 certified and wonder what is all that about? Before you tell your prospective client they have an error on their forms, see why more and more organizations are demanding their suppliers –materials and service – to become ISO 9001 certified.

Tags: ISO 9001 service,iso 9001 standard for service companies

Category: ISO Consulting

Category: ISO Registration

Category: Continual Improvement

Combining ISO 9001 with C-TPAT requirements: A simple approach to building an integrated Quality Management System.

info@mireauxms.com — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:09:00 GMT

If your company continuously ships goods across the border and in and out from overseas, more than likely you are looking to become a C-TPAT partner in order to speed up the customs process. Learn how a company achieved C-TPAT status and ISO 9001 certification by combining C-TPAT requirements with the ISO 9001 standard requirements.

Tags: C-TPAT,Information Security,ISO 9001,Integrated QMS

Category: ISO Consulting

Category: Information Security

Category: Supply Chain

Category: Document Control and Records

Category: Continual Improvement

Category: Proces Mapping

Category: Quality Management System

Do you feel like your company is acting like a chicken without a head? Find out what good process mapping can do for you!

info@mireauxms.com — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:45:00 GMT

Do you ever feel that even though you have a lot of procedures your QMS system seems unfulfilling and unable to add value to your company? Do you feel the lack of adherence to your QMS system is perhaps a lack of understanding of your QMS? If you answer is yes to these questions then perhaps the cause of your problems can be a basic case of lack of good process mapping.

Tags: Process Mapping,Process Flowchart,Procedures

Category: ISO Consulting

Category: Proces Mapping

Category: Quality Management System

Goals vs. Targets vs. Objectives vs. KPI’s vs. Metrics What do we really need?

info@mireauxms.com — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:01:00 GMT

Are you confused as to whether your organization needs to implement goals, objectives or KPIs? Do you know the difference between objectives and targets? Let’s see what each one brings, what you really need and how many of those you need to implement in your organization.

Category: ISO Consulting

Category: Quality Objectives

Category: Continual Improvement

This certificate smells fishy! How to find out if an ISO certificate is forged or valid.

info@mireauxms.com — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:07:00 GMT

I was recently at a meeting with some colleagues and the subject of forged certificates was brought up. We discussed the fact that some organizations do have the audacity of not just creating a fake certificate, but sometimes even wanting to change registrars. Seems odd? Later on, I was asked by a reader for some tips on how to find out if a registration or certificate is valid or not. The reader noticed while auditing their potential supplier that the processes in this company did not look very much in control the way an ISO certified company would.

So here I'm with some concise steps and links that can hopefully help anybody confirm if a certain organization is indeed ISO certified.

Category: ISO Consulting

Category: ISO Registration

Are you sure your torque wrench is capable of the force you are using it for? How to determine effectively the equipment needed for your monitoring and measurement activities

info@mireauxms.com — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:15:00 GMT

In case you are not sure if the equipment you are currently using for your monitoring and measuring activities is the most adequate equipment or if you are wondering why such as expensive tool is used to inspect a certain part, then it may be worth for you to understand tolerances, accuracy and what the impact of the equipment on meeting your specification requirements is.

Category: ISO Consulting

Category: Calibration

Continual Improvement… It’s not so easy, a caveman could not do it!

info@mireauxms.com — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:07:00 GMT

When I started my career nearly 20 years ago, the world was a little different. People were still smoking in the workplace, Dilbert was in everybody’s desk and the quality program of the month was the joke du jour. Many things have changed since then for the goodness of the world and the quality of products and services, but the fact is, it wasn’t easy. So if you are just starting your quality career or if you have been there, you may want to know that reaching for continual improvement is really not so easy and a caveman could not do it!

Category: Continual Improvement

Mayday, Mayday…Where did my Laptop go?! Nine Basic Information Security Controls Any Company Should Implement

info@mireauxms.com — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:54:00 GMT

I’m sure you’ve heard of laptops being stolen, but have you heard of laptops being swapped? Lost or stolen laptops and the data they carry are just one of the disasters that may ail you or your organization one day. In reality, there are many more security incidents that can affect the security of your organization or employees, putting sensitive information at risk.

Whether your organization is adopting the ISO 27001 Information Security Management System standard or not, whether your organization is small or large, or whether you deal with top secret information or not, nowadays everyone needs to be aware of information security. Information has become such an intricate part of every individual and most certainly every organization, that ignoring this area is not an option. In this article, I present to you 9 basic controls I believe are essential in every organization in order to preserve the security of their information.

Category: Information Security

ISO and other quality initiatives can improve our processes, but can they improve our sales?

info@mireauxms.com — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:35:00 GMT

When a quality management system is implemented, results are evident immediately: reduction in warranty cost, reduction in rework, reduction in scrap, higher profit margins, etc. Would you agree that ISO and other quality initiatives such as Lean, Six Sigma, 5S can significantly improve any company’s processes -if requirements are correctly implemented? Why, if you know that a good quality management system improves your processes, are you then reluctant to include all company processes in this system? Why would most companies barely include sales on any quality initiatives? If and only if you apply the same ISO and quality concepts to the entire Sales process, inside and outside sales, you stand to see significant improvements.

Category: ISO Consulting

Category: Quality Objectives

Category: Continual Improvement

Category: Proces Mapping