ISO9 Quality Wire #8 - March 2002 Top of the List New ISO Standard for Managing Business Records Quality Corner Surviving Registration Industry News Get a Grip on Document Control Developing and Maintaining an Effective Records Management Programme Who Will Survive the ASP Evolution? Real Time is Right for ASPs Did You Know? First ISO 9001:2000 Registration Achieved in Latin America Top of the List New ISO Standard for Managing Business Records The first International Standard for the management of business records is expected to result in cost savings for users, whether large or small enterprises, as well as improved risk management. Published by ISO (International Organization for Standardization), ISO 15489, Information and documentation - Records management, focuses on the business principles behind records management and how organizations can establish a framework to enable a comprehensive records management programme. Read full article Quality Corner Surviving Registration An editorial by John McNamara, ISO9 Senior Consultant Imagine you're back in high school. It's the day before your SAT exams and you have pre-test jitters. You have spent the past four years preparing for this one day. Panic sets in and you are not sure if you are ready for what lays ahead. You fear that you will walk in, open the book and suddenly forget everything you have learned over the years. You are no longer certain what the letters SAT mean. You are lost. Does this sound familiar? Do you recall those days vividly or do you try to keep those nightmares at bay, hoping they will never surface again? Well, if you are one to run and hide from such things you might be in trouble as you prepare for your registration. Preparing for ISO 9000 registration is not entirely different from preparing for your SAT exams. Sure you are older and more experienced now -- and you're not required to bring two sharpened No. 2 pencils -- but the stress and anxiety is similar. This doesn't have to be the case. Sure, I can say this now -- I've survived both. Going through my SAT exams was not a trying ordeal. I tend to be cool, calm and collective in those situations, but I had many friends stress out to the point of hysterics. The reality is that, like the SAT exams, preparing for your registration audit is something you can prepare for forever and never completely feel ready. That is the beauty of it all. You take the SAT exam and you do the best you can. In the end you get a score. You can live with that score or take the test again and again until you have a score that you are happy with...it's all practice to get where you need to be. Registration audits are similar. You take a pre-assessment for the purpose of seeing how you do before you dive into the real thing. It's sort of like taking the PSAT first. Then, if you are pleased with your results, you move on to the final certification audit. Similar to the SATs, you don't pass or fail a registration audit -- the goal is to highlight where you need to improve and fine-tune your system. Through your journey to registration, it is important to realize that registration audits -- while expensive and very important to the growth of your company's quality system -- are not necessary to stress out over. If you have a good quality system in place (or think you do) and you have had successful internal audits and have been working hard over the past weeks/months to make sure that everything is documented and you are following what you document, then put down that extra cup of coffee and relax. Anxiety over your registration is only necessary for those of you who have been snoozing instead of studying. Industry News Quality Get a Grip on Document Control: An auditor's secrets for maintaining and improving process media Every year I perform gap analyses on organizations that are building compliant quality management systems. A client I recently visited was well along the path of documenting the company's system. The quality manager and a very enthusiastic administrator spent a couple of hours taking me through their methodology for developing documentation. They had created an impressive style guide that defined text layout, font styles and format. The templates they had created for procedures and work instructions were logical and well thought out. The process for document issuance and recall appeared relatively bulletproof--even if a bit labor- intensive. For additional information Developing and Maintaining an Effective Records Management Programme The new ISO 15489, Information and Documentation -- Record Management, clearly shows how any organization can systematically and effectively improve their record keeping -- and do so in such a way that the business objectives are supported. Robert J McLean, Records Manager/Archivist, at The Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom, explains why this standard is not "just another" document offering advice on records management issues. Good records management practice is essential to create, capture and use information essential for the organization. He demonstrates that this new standard presents best practice drawn from an expert international community using terms and concepts familiar to and of great interest to all managers. ISO 15489 identifies the key issues involved in retaining the information and making it available in a useable and reliable way as well as how it may be selectively and securely disposed of at the appropriate time. Read full article ASP Who Will Survive the ASP Evolution? META Group has always advocated that the ASP industry was not a unique market segment, but rather a derivative (or side effect) of the commoditization of application outsourcing services. We believe that by 2004, the services industry will use new terms and that the phrase ASP will no longer be in vogue. The services that remain will be subscription or consumption-based pricing models (e.g., per seat pricing for applications). Successful vendors will focus on integrated, end-to-end industry solutions (e.g., retail inventory management) or providing business process outsourcing (BPO) solutions. Read full article Real Time is Right for ASPs How do you define an ASP these days? Experienced ASPs, reacting to the needs of their customers and the trends they have found in the market, have subtly shifted their offerings in various ways over the past year or so. The result is a variety of hybrid business models that defy easy definition. Calling them hosted applications providers no longer adequately captures the essence of what ASPs do. Application hosting is something that outsourcers and hosting providers do, too (if you don't believe me, look at the last week's announcements of full-year results from outsourcing giant EDS or top managed hosting provider Digex. Both have significant revenue streams from providing managed application hosting.) Read full article For more industry news, click here. Did You Know? First ISO 9001:2000 Registration Achieved in Latin America The Department of Taxation for the City of Aguascalientes, Mexico, has achieved compliance to ISO 9001:2000. This marks the first registration to the standard in Latin America, according to BSI, which issued the certificate of registration. "The citizens today demand a municipal government of high quality," notes Luis Armando Reynoso Femat, mayor of Aguascalientes. "A quality management system defines and follows planned actions in a systematic way, thus generating the appropriate level of trust within an organization and its customers." "Aguascalientes is a model for all to see," comments Ronald D. Mathis, vice president of marketing and sales at BSI, who presented the certificate of registration. "The dedication and enthusiasm are infectious and the improvements to the government through the morale of its people and the associated cost reductions are evident everywhere." During an October celebration of the 426th anniversary of Aguascalientes, the city council organized a National Forum for Quality, drawing more than 800 officials from 150 Mexican cities. The forum focused on Aguascalientes' experiences and success with registration of its public service. Aguascalientes' economic growth has reached 6.8 percent in the last five years, which is more than double the national average of 2.8 percent. Moreover, the city has achieved significant results in the areas of urban infrastructure and services. Courtesy of Quality Digest

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