Leadership and the ISO Management System Standards

  Participation by Top Management in Quality Systems - Part 2 In Part 1 of this article, we looked at the first six topics related to the role of top management in Company Wide Quality Management (CWQM). The topics discussed in Part 1 were: Establish a quality council Serve on the quality council Establish quality policies Establish quality goals and objectives Deploy the goals and objectives Provide resources In Part 2 we are going to look at the rest of the topics, as discussed in Juran's Quality Control Handbook, Fourth Edition. Provide problem-orientated training Training is a great resource that top management is often keen to provide. It can be the solution, or at least part of the solution, to many problems, including our business and quality problems. However, often top management do not personally involve themselves with training, especially not when it comes to receiving training for themselves. This leads to a good deal of imbalance when it comes to training fo...

  Participation by Top Management in Quality Systems – Part 1 Introduction The following information on the role of top management (leadership) in quality management systems is broadly based on information from Juran’s Quality Management Handbook, 4 th Edition, published in 1988. It is surprising to see how much insight there was on the role of leadership and top management in quality, even in those days. Juran pointed out that,   as much as we like to use these words, there is no way known for defining top management participation through the use of the words “commitment” and “involvement”. The definitions of these words are just too wide to be helpful. If top management is committed, what does it actually mean? Does it mean that they endorse the establishment of a quality department, or that they encourage quality inspections, etc.? Juran believed that we should rather precisely define 2 things:         Which specific decisions are to be made b...