Choose one of the three process improvement initiatives (CMM, ISO 9000, SPICE) and review the advantages and disadvantages of using it in a small organization and a large organization. Include references for your research including two references to conferences specifically dealing with that initiative. Please remember that references need to be authoritative, i.e., another student is not an authority generally.

    The ISO 9000 family of standards have been developed to assist organizations of all types and sizes, to implement and operate effective quality management systems. ISO 900 outlines the fundamentals and the process approach for establishing a quality management system (QMS). ISO 9001 documents the requirements for the QMS so that the end product is consistent with what is committed to be provided to the customer. Requirements include Management responsibility, resource management, process management, supplier management and continual improvement. ISO 9004 provides guidelines for performance improvements. The International Standard promotes the adoption of a process approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness of a quality management system, to enhance customer satisfaction  by meeting customer requirements.

   ISO 9000 FOR LARGE ORGANIZATION

     My employer, SBC, Inc. is the second largest local phone company in the USA. It operates such companies as Ameritech, Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell, Nevada Bell, SNET  and Cingular Wireless. Currently SBC is in the process of implementing ISO 9000 with some parts of the company already certified and the others to be certified in the near future. For a company of this size, the implementation of ISO 9000 is a major undertaking, and the fact that it is being done signifies that the Company Management clearly sees many advantages of standardization. In internal documents distributed to employees the Company pointed out following advantages of the ISO 9000 implementation:

All of the above advantages lead to:

    Due to the significant variance of the operations SBC decided to implement ISO 9000 in stages, starting with Network Operations Centers and departments responsible for Network Maintenance and Provisioning and moving down to Local Facility Operations, Loop Electronics and Special Services. One of the major advantages of the ISO 9000 standardization described above is consistency in the way different parts of the company operate. Every part of SBC has its own way of performing its functions. Currently the practices differ even between day and night shift at the same department. When ISO 9000 is implemented, technician will be able to work the same way anywhere in the company.

    The only disadvantage of the ISO 9000 implementation is the cost. The cost includes training and certifying internal auditors, generation of documents, training employees and management and other associated expenses. However, the costs are easily outweighed by the realized savings from the customer satisfaction and streamlining of operations.

NOTE: For this part of the assignment I was referring to internal SBC documents.
            "ISO 9000 Overview"
            "Network Operations Center ISO 9000 conference May 2,2001"
I have hard copies of those documents in my possession and will provide them upon request.        

ISO 9000 FOR SMALL ORGANIZATION

    In their article ISO 9000 for Small Companies published in the Quality Digest Online Magazine Nancy Callaghan and Les Schnoll discuss advantages and disadvantages of implementing ISO 9000 in a small business, especially in a company with less than 150 employees. Among the advantages they cite:

Many businesses trying to implement ISO 9000 encounter following problems:

In her article Polyguard bolsters quality, productivity with ISO 9000 system sysprocess Margaret Allen adds following advantages to the list:

Newsletter from New Jersey MEP backs up the ISO 9000 benefit list with numbers:

An evaluation of the results of ISO 9000 Registration on the Return of Investment, from McGraw-Hill, reveals significant annual cost savings and internal and external benefits associated with companies implementing ISO 9000.

For large as well as small businesses ISO 9000 brings numerous advantages an significant return on investment.

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