Tuesday, July 8. 2008Humanity Continues To Adapt And Grow........John Linton .......it appears the same can't be said for the NSW Government. Exetel is responding to a NSW Government tender to allow the company, if successful, to be included on the list of approved providers so that we can tender for the communications requirements of the various NSW State government departments as they arise. We haven't bothered applying for State Government, or Federal Government accreditation before because we didn't have the required 'longevity' or appropriate revenue/profit results over the required periods....maybe we still don't. I am not personally involved in answering the tender but I was asked to respond to the question regarding the requirement to have an ISO9000 series "quality assurance" accreditation and that made my mind 'flash back' to the 1980s when governments, all round the world apparently, somehow came to the conclusion that it could only allow companies with an "internationally recognised system of quality control" to bid for their business. This was the question: "(A) Quality Assurance/ Quality Management Process I well remember the ISO and their Australian equivalents (AS) quality standards and the accreditation processes required to obtain them. It was the sheerest nonsense that had as much relevance in ensuring a company produced a high quality product, or service, as a speed limit sign on a freeway has to ensuring no vehicle exceeds the speed limit - none whatsoever. However the company I was associated with at that time derived almost 33% of its revenue from State governments and the Federal government so the long and pointless process of acquiring AS9001 (I think) was undertaken and after wasting thousands of man hours and spending $A50,000 on external 'standards consulting" fees - lo and behold - we received a piece of paper attesting that we made a quality product. Stuff and nonsense. Nothing had changed in anything we did before the process other than all our realistic documentation was turned into gobbledigook - however the gobbledigook did conform to exact gobbledigook standard layouts and paragraph headings and sub clauses. What a complete waste of time. Since the Volvo experiment in the early 1970s followed by the Western Commercial world's long lasting love affair with the Japanese processes of Total Quality Management (now handily universally referred to as TQM) governments have been obsessed with their bureaucratic rights to insist that "Quality" is a key benchmark for the purchase of services using public money. Highly laudable (choruses of muffled "hear , hears" from the back benches of every parliament house in Australia). Pity it means damn all to the actual quality of the product or service 'manufactured' using an ISO standard. I had been fortunate to go to Japan several times a year in the late 1970s and early 1980s accompanying large commercial and government prospective buyers for the then unheard of Facom (Fujitsu) mainframe computers. These trips involved visiting the Numazu, and other, plants where these 'huge' computers and their components were manufactured. Over a period of some three years I learned a lot about high quality manufacturing processes as the various Facom and Fujitsu executives briefed the prospective buyers on their processes and procedures that allowed them to manufacture main frame computers that had an MTBF of 60 months compared to IBM's 13 months (at that time). Even more importantly why the Facom computers had a post installation "Engineering Change" incidence of one per 48 months compared to IBM's one per two months. The answer was not TQM it was "Zero Defect". Zero Defect was part Volvo experiment, part General Motors production line robot theory but most of all it was instilling the desire (not the requirement) for every person in every manufacturing unit to aim to produce not a "highest quality" product but a product that was perfect. And they did - not just for a time but over the time they made the product. It recognised human fallibility and human physical weakness (tiredness/illness) as well as recognising the 'unthinking nature' of computers and computer controlled robots and found a solution. It made ISO9001 look like a kindergarten drawing compared to a Matisse riverside cafe scene. So we didn't put in a 9000 series quality assurance system when we created Exetel we put in ZD which I attempted to explain in 300 (actually 320) words: The processes and procedures that Exetel Pty Ltd uses to manage its day to day and ongoing business have not been developed or certified against the ISO 9000 standards nor are they based on any codified TQM system. I don't expect that a few words (300 or any other number) will satisfy anyone, but the fact is that unless something is fully automated and then cross checked by more than three different 'human' functions it isn't going to deliver the highest possible level of quality let alone a perfect 'product'. So, Exetel's - and any other company that aspires to 'perfect quality' will assiduously document what it is going to offer the marketplaces it aims to serve and then develop the computer systems and the 'human' cross checking that will allow that objective to be met - by eliminating as much human interaction as possible - not by creating manuals/procedure descriptions or paperwork of any kind. I'm not sure that a government department responsible for understanding quality will ever understand the ZD concept that if a human being does something it can never be relied on, over time, to be done perfectly. Only automation is perfect - at least after the 7th or 8th time you fix the bugs. Trackbacks
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It would be interesting to see what would happen if Exetel was to apply for the ISO9000 accreditation based on your current processes and see if they passed. (and how much the exercise would cost.)
Also the latest buzz in the IT industry is the ITIL framework (ISO 20000) covering Change, Release, Incident, Problem, Configuration and Knowledge Management. Every couple of years the 'system' is renewed meaning that IT providers are 'required' to spend the money to update systems, and train staff to meet the 'new' flavour of the same thing. Comment (1)
I remember well being beaten for a government tender in the early 80's.
The successful tenderer said they were "currently developing" their Quality Plan to ISO status - which was a blatant lie. ... but the statement was accepted (or ticked as OK) by the tender assessor.... and they were never questioned further...... even when the tender was renewed over 3 successive periods. In my tender, I offered to prepare a Quality Plan tailored to the particular tender... but apparently that meant I had no plan... so I did not get the "tick" for that aspect of my tender. Years later, just to prove the point, I doctored up a "Quality Plan" and had it assessed by the government concerned.... it passed with flying colours! As an old MD used to say to me.... "its the price of the ticket, if you want to get in to the ball game!" Good luck! Harry. Comment (1)
In other words lie and baffle em with BS cause everyone else does?
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Heh, I loved the last line, and totally agree with it.
"Only automation is perfect - at least after the 7th or 8th time you fix the bugs." I'm an .NET application developer by trade. I try to do the same thing when automating as much as possible. But as the process gets more complex, I find it becomes overly difficult to script it, or create an automated task to do the job. Often it breaks down when the client requires you to call them to press a button. Inevitably the human process is documented and run as necessary. I'm amazed that Exetel has managed to automate as much as it does when adding new clients. I'll see how well I can strive for ZD. Comment (1)
No matter how well you document a 'human' process and how good an dedicated the 'humans' who carry out that process are they will never achieve perfection all the time.
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