Do you wish you could find a trustworthy quality manager toolbox that has a solution to satisfy requirements for a new business opportunity?
Truth is, somebody is always assigned the responsibility to complete a quality improvement task to help their Company satisfy new requirements that were never needed before.
Back in the day, nobody was there to help me with a trustworthy quality manager toolbox when I was obliged to get our Company compliant with MIL-I-45208. Nobody was there to help me work from scratch to get a new Customer to check all the boxes on their Supplier qualification list.
After achieving compliance with the flowdowns in our DoD contract, the QAR blessed this mess and we passed every source inspection for years; and of course, those occasional system audits. Over the years, MIL-I became Enhanced after integrating all those additional wants and needs from Customers.
Then, in 1984, ISO 9001 got released, but nobody in our industry adopted it. However, we did get slapped with MIL-Q-9858. That spec is a bag full of tricks. Naturally, I found a way to get into compliance for our Company. Again, nobody was there to help me with a trustworthy quality manager toolbox full of compliant policies, procedures and forms.
About a year later, while working on the contract and making multiple shipments, our Customer performed a system audit with a group of their Representatives. They blessed this mess right about the end of the contract. Never fear though, as business growth would have it, we were slapped with AS9100 by an even larger Customer.
By now, our Company’s reputation was fiercely reliable in the industry. On the faith of our good history, our Customer allowed us to start work while implementing our compliance efforts for AS9100. As it turns out, the standard includes all the content from ISO 9001 plus about 150 additional requirements. Again, nobody was there to help me with a trustworthy quality manager toolbox of compliant and easy to tailor MS Office docs!
We suffered for nearly 15 years with a paper trail and lots of legwork for show and tell during audits. We now had to store records for 20 years instead of 7.
To ease the burden, I mixed it up with technology from the era of Windows XP. I decided to create my own document control system, calling it Efficient QMS. Efficient because eQMS automated storage and revision control of all the policies, procedures and forms produced by our quality system and production activities. In addition, we easily stored Company records, like purchase orders, receiving inspections, production inspections, final inspections and shipping, internal audits, corrective actions, nonconformities, engineering changes, management meetings, design reviews, configuration audits, risk analyses, equipment calibrations, and more…
eQMS also enabled our Customers and Auditors to access all our QMS and production procedures and records from their desk or on the road using their favorite Browser and laptop computer.
AS9100 is a truly sincere bag of tricks covering everything in a business operation that has any influence on the deliverable product, usually worth millions of dollars over the life of a contract. The standard is a quality system that is at the top of the food chain, except for the much more comprehensive ISO 16949 for the automotive industry.
Our Registrar was NSF-ISR. They couldn’t believe the simplicity of their desktop review of our QMS and said they had never experienced anything better. Their onsite audit performed just as well with everybody singing to the same sheet of music and showing and telling from one resource at their fingertips. Our only finding was a tag missing on an expired shelf life item, which was found after some time. Our Customer and our Auditors were very, very impressed with the resource we were using to keep the paper trail under control and readily available.
After decades of experience in an array of industries, I decided to create a trustworthy quality manager toolbox to help those that think they don’t have anybody there to help them achieve nirvana for their quality improvement project.
Going even farther along the path of support, there’s no-charge for guidance, mentoring or brainstorming for your project by phone or email, and there’s no expiration. You can always call or email to ask burning questions about your project. Did I just hear you say: “I’ve got to do what?!?!”… let me explain…!
Click here to find AS9100 on sae.org *
Click here to find ISO 9001 on ansi.org *
Wish you the best for your project.
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