Every time a company achieves first time registration this list is further refined to reflect what the company actually did. It was started in 1986 and now is the accumulated wisdom of hundreds of successful registration projects using the process approach now specified in ISO 9001-2000:

1. Make a senior person responsible for your integrated system.
This person will report directly to the CEO and receive the needed training.

2. Form a Task Force and consider need/role of an advisor.
Select no more than eight personnel from a cross section of grades and functions.

3. Conduct survey (audit) using ISO 9001-2000 and report.
Report will identify adequacy of as-is procedures and need for new procedures.

4. Publish Quality Policy, Objectives and Action Plan.
Policy by the CEO, Objectives by VPs & Plan from Task Force.

5. Develop leaders to create and sustain employee awareness.
All leaders & Task Force must learn so they understand and can explain.

6. Define organizational structure and responsibilities.
Keep this up to date with names & job titles as a formal document.

7. Involve employees in developing and improving the system.
By awareness sessions, flowcharting, team reviews and experience feedback.

8. Decide on the document coding procedure.
Use this from day one of developing system documentation.

9. Flowchart key processes showing all interfaces.
Start with core processes and then tie in the support processes.

10. Code all forms in line with agreed coding procedure.
Every form should belong to a process, remove redundant forms.

11. Correlate all forms to flowcharts.
Every form should have a place, if not check completeness of flowchart.

12. Review flowcharts for accuracy.
By "accuracy" we mean what actually happens!

13. Develop and use flowcharts to document procedures.
The flowchart can become the procedure, always include process objective(s).

14. Review, reconcile, approve and issue as-is procedures.
Involve everyone and do not ignore comments. Process owners may approve.

15. Prepare new procedures and train staff to implement them.
These will come from the ISO 9000 survey (see action 3) of your existing system.

16. Approve and issue new procedures and pilot quality plans.
Quality planning is essential for customer driven teams eliminating waste.

17. Describe your overall system in your quality manual.
Keep it slim and simple for customers, every employee and suppliers.

18. Launch the system and respond quickly to revision requests.
Throw a party you deserve it! Invite continuous improvement.

19. Audit and improve your system to raise value and reduce avoidable costs.
Your trained audit team will come from action 15. Cover suppliers too.

20. Conduct preassessment at least two months before the Registrar.
Use a registered lead auditor and ensure all corrective action records are up to date.

These actions take from 6 to 18 months depending on the extent of formalized system, the skills base, workload and the degree of management commitment.

Continuous improvement (using the system) requires determined leadership of the team, strong involvement at all levels and updating of the action plan following management review.

This page has been provided by Quality Management International, Inc. which is accredited (by the ANSI-RAB including IATCA) to train auditors of management systems.