Proposition: Although ISO 9000 would appear to be based upon sound and efficient business management principles, its implementation within a company invariably corrupts and subverts the core focus away from actual performance to documentation of procedures.

Let's take a recent analogy close to my heart:
We all surely agree that we don't want terrorists getting on airplanes with bombs or weapons and using them as weapons of mass destruction, right?

45% of solution: Make sure all passengers and crew are aware that terrorists are no longer best dealt with by relinquishing control.

Cost: Zero.

Inconvenience factor: Zero.

45% of solution: Lock cockpit doors/provide pilots with weapons.

Cost: A few million.

Inconvenience factor: Zero.

5% of solution: Beef up existing screening/close known loopholes in security, (look at shoes, etc.).

Cost: A few million every month.

Inconvenience factor: Slightly increased (longer screening times).

Now the ISO 9000/B.S. doctrinaire part of the solution:

0000.0001% of solution: Step up body searches of non middle-eastern women with babies, old age pensioners, and (my favorite!) screen the crew for weapons. If they wanted to crash the damn aircraft, they don't need a weapon--they're already in control!

Cost: A few tens of millions every month.

Inconvenience factor: Dramatic.

Finally, 0000.0000001% of solution: Scrupulously eliminate all nose-hair scissors and nail clippers from the plane.

Cost: A few more tens of millions every month.

Inconvenience factor: Dramatic.

So to get back to ISO 9000...

I am prepared to concede that there can be significant value in sitting down and thinking of (and documenting) all the processes that should be in place in a company to ensure repeatable reliable production of goods and services. Unfortunately, though, what happens in the real world is that the company then goes through a period of intense pain and struggle to become ISO certified.

In order to become and maintain certification, a huge emphasis has to be placed upon ensuring the procedures are followed. The company is convulsed and consumed by the process. There is inevitably an irresistible tendency for everyone to believe that conformance to the procedures is what makes the company successful, and what creates profit.

Horse Feathers!

Blindly following existing protocol is what leads to the confiscation of nail clippers, rather than the capture of terrorists like Richard Reid (who looked so weird and spaced out that everyone felt he couldn't actually be a terrorist because they couldn't all be that dumb!).

The procedures are a starting point. They are no substitute for individual knowledge, commitment, initiative, and, especially, identification with the goals of the company. We all know what happens to a company when union employees "work to rule".

I remember reading somewhere that there is a significant negative correlation between ISO certification and profitability. I believe it! The biggest contract ASTi ever received was from a company in Canada, and our lack of ISO certification was a major problem. This was eventually overcome by their Q.A. people ascertaining that we had ISO-equivalence.

The employees at that company were as smart as any other. But it was very proudly ISO certified. For example, it had procedures and a two-page form for booking conference rooms: How long? What's the topic? What is the objective? What's the exit criteria? List of the attendees. Equipment needed, etc. etc. What's wrong with a simple sign up sheet on the door?

There was a similar form for ordering lunch.

That company has since gone out of business, even though the project on which our equipment is installed continues to be very successful. In my view, it failed primarily because everyone there was confident that if they kept re-arranging the deck chairs, they didn't have to worry that the ship would ever sink.

Undue emphasis on written procedures dooms a company to always fight the last war. No one wants to make innovations because then they have to change all the paperwork. Business is competition. It's civilized combat. Like trees and bushes fighting to outgrow each other and get to the sunlight. Forget that and you're doomed. It just may take a while for the Titanic to sink, but it will eventually.

So we have many very good procedures at ASTi, and most of them were written down at some point, but they evolve and improve. But ISO certification? Never!