<Bowing while typing>
Thanks for the kind words! 
This is, unfortunately, very common. It did however give me possibly my single most enjoyable moment as an auditor. Running through one of the organization’s procedures I came across a clause and said, “You know, I actually thought this clause was a bit dodgy when I wrote it, and I think it’s even more dodgy in this context.” I didn’t write it up as an issue (that would have been slightly hypocritical), but I did suggest that modifying the procedure would be an “opportunity for improvement.” (I had previously consulted to a completely different organization, and somehow bits of my work had ended up in this organization’s Quality Management System.)
If you can find it re-post it here. It is perfect for this thread.
Sigma 6 was an early name used by Pink Floyd.
Interesting, thanks. I get served by PG&E, northern California’s explosive power company, so competence at the higher levels is very scarce. I could go on, but not in GQ.
See, this is an error a good ISO 9001 auditor would never make. Regulatory requirements are simply something you have to take into account when putting together a quality management system. Statutory and regulatory requirements are specifically called out as being things the organization must determine and account for (section 7.2.1 c.)
In some businesses, regulatory requirements are just hugely, hugely important. I have a customer who handles and disposes of radioactive material (mostly from medical devices.) You’d better believe those guys abide by a few regulations.
This is, incidentally, why auditors assigned to audits have to be familiar with the TYPE of business they’re visiting.
Actually, the auditors are always very cheerful, polite, helpful, and make it very clear that I’m not “on trial” but rather, the system is being audited to make sure it’s working properly and that everyone on the team understands how to use it properly. I always feel good at the end of an audit, even when stuff pops up that is a violation. It takes a special kind of personality to be a good auditor!
Still, it’s a PITA. As are many very valuable processes that seem to inhibit us doing our jobs, but in reality, help us not mess up as bad as we normally would. I’d far rather be writing or testing code than sitting on the phone answering questions about the document trail, but the document trail is crucial, and often helps me after the fact.
BTW, I think I’ve only been in internal audits, ones done by (specially trained) company employees. Maybe one was an actual external certification audit. I think I’ve been in about four, since 2000. That there are more internal audits than external ones is a good thing, except that it means I have to participate in more (damned) audits!
E-x-a-c-t-l-y.
Let me tell you a little story about my previous boss.
I knew him very well; we used to hang out together on the weekends. He was very very very Roman Catholic, and after a while it became apparent to me that he used the Catholic Catechism to control his family. When I was at his house, he would control his family by saying something along the lines of, “It’s not because I want you to do this and that. It’s because the catholic catechism obligates us to do so!” Yes, he used Catholicism to control his family.
And then he discovered ISO-9000. He loved and breathed ISO-9000. And so we became ISO-9000 certified.
Afterwards he was controlling our every move in the name of ISO-9000. “It’s not because I am telling you what to do. It’s because ISO-9000 obligates us to do so!”
I left that group ASAP.
I heard they quickly went downhill a few years after I left.
So in a nutshell, he used Catholicism to control his family, and ISO-9000 to control his workers.
The different appears to be that ISO9000 was about having a standard , blind to the outcome… And it calls for micromanagement , the upper management specifies how the low level do their jobs…
Sigma 6 is about saying “no poor outcomes are to be ignored”… which isn’t neccessarly involving upper management meeting the coal face - but still it says that the same “par” can be used everwhere… Of course the actual rate of poor outcomes may vary from place to place and circumstance to circumstance…
Its not clear that one can write a document or standard that works for every case.
But there is one clear example of the philosophy working before it had this name.
In the piloting of air craft.
Previously they had the standard rule, the captain rules and the lesser pilots do what they are told and merely answer questions.
Now, the other staff can answer questions, and give their interpretation of what that means, and/or give a concise plan of correction (or how to survive… ).
it is as simple as with airplane pilots vs captain.
Old way . Captain asks a question and the answer had better be concise factual and not anything like advice, unless asked for advice.
Captain asks how much fuel is left ?
Answer: " 1000 gallons" .
There was one plane, where the chief pilot, for unknown reasons ( its unheard of for aircraft to have a secret reserve not on the gauge ) does nothing and tells everyone to keep flying even while they knew it was using up the last of the fuel.
(It was already having control difficulties, and the lack of engine power combined with previous difficulties made control very hard to impossible !)
Solution: the co-pilot or engineer says
“5000 gallons left, we had better land in 10 minutes”
“3000 gallons left, we had better land within 5 minutes”
“1000 gallons left, that grass looks like a fine place to crash”
Neither of these things is true though. ISO 9001 is absolutely NOT blind to the outcome, and doesn’t require micromanagement.
This part is not true, either. Six Sigma uses statistical modeling to identify which poor outcomes can be ignored as inherent to the process (noise) and which cannot (signal). For example, let’s say you have created the a process that yields 2 poor outcomes per million opportunities. That process would be at a perfect six sigma (6 standard deviations). The process would be deemed to be “in control” and the 2 poor outcomes would be ignored as “within the tolerances allowed by the sigma level desired” (AKA “noise”).
Seconded here. Six Sigma is (at our company) a way for a lot of middle management parasites to pretend to be “doing something” while only slowing down the actual people doing the actual work that generates money.
I personally–not a “friend of a friend” mind you. I was in the room–heard a Green Belt (who I think was also a ‘champion’, but don’t quote me on that) tell our copy center guys that they needed to reorganize the colored paper on their shelves…alphabetically. Rather than the way they had it where the most frequently used paper was on the most accessible shelves. Because alphabetizing was a ‘standard practice’.
She only recently left the company and it was to get another job which would focus more on her Six Sigma shit. And she did stuff like that all over the company–slowing processes down to ‘standardize’ them.
This may or may not be what Six Sigma is supposed to be about, but if they’re certifying people who are doing shit like this (and I’m not the only person I know who’s had similar horror stories), they need to apply some ethics and good business practices to their own organization and apply some quality control to themselves.
Hilarious. That’s almost exactly what a 6Sigma belt holder shouldn’t do. Heck she should have been thrilled the papers were already in an optimum place and then, maybe, gone and checked delays linked to paper sourcing and how to eliminate that process wait state. Perhaps do a few short experiments like automating paper refreshing or double stacking the most used paper or even if it kills her suggest that changing anything would be a poor ROI and not implement a change at all.