Chartered Quality Institute
Smaller companies are calling on the UK government to provide better support and information to help them go green, according to research. (more…)
News
SMEs need more support to go green
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010Conservatives best understand quality
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010Quality professionals have voted the Conservatives as the political party with the greatest appreciation of quality principles in the run up to the UK’s general election closely followed by the Liberal Democrats.
A third of quality professionals agreed that the Tory party had the policies that most reflected an understanding of quality in a OW Express poll following the release of the main party manifestos.
The Liberal Democrats, seeming to
benefit from Nick Clegg’s performance
in the first televised leadership debate.
were backed by 27% of those who
responded, leaving the Labour party
trailing in third place with just 16.4% quality professionals supporting them, despite promises to “spread excellence” in their manifesto.
One respondent backing the Conservative party which has pledged to cut “wasteful spending” by £6bn. said, “None of the other parties have a clue about lean management” At the same time. however, a Liberal Democrat supporter argued, “The Tories criticism of targets indicates that they do not understand the basic quality principle of plan-do-check-act.”
More worrying was the number of respondents that believed none of the parties truly understood quality. One said, “Political parties espouse quality principles but that is not reflected by an understanding of proper implementation. Most instances are knee jerk reactions to failure, never from promotion of best practice or excellence.”
Another said, “One important are that the Conservatives do seem to understand is removing the Whitehall staff paid huge salaries to tell the public sector what to do. Getting rid of these people will save the country millions of pounds in salaries and result in bigger savings when public sector managers no longer have to comply with bad ideas.”
Chartered Quality Institute
Quality professionals have voted the Conservatives as the political party with the greatest appreciation of quality principles (more…)
UKAS Appointed as National Accreditation Body for the UK
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
UKAS
The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) has been formally appointed as the National Accreditation Body for the United Kingdom, under a new EU Regulation. (more…)
New edition of ISO 9004 maps out the path forward to “sustained success”
Saturday, November 14th, 2009ISO
The just-published new edition of ISO 9004 provides organizations with a model for “sustained success” (more…)
Certification helps SMEs to survive recession
Saturday, October 10th, 2009NQA
Small businesses with certification against management systems standards are better placed to survive the recession, according to research from certification body NQA. (more…)
ISO9004:2009
Monday, October 5th, 2009ISO technical committee TC176 is developing a new release of ISO9004 – “Managing for the sustained success of an organization — A quality management approach”. (more…)
New edition of ISO/TS 16949 quality specification for automotive industry supply chain
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009ISO
ISO has just published a new edition of ISO/TS 16949:2009, which specifies quality system requirements for suppliers in the automotive sector.
ISO/TS 16949:2009 replaces the 2002 edition which has been used by the major automotive manufacturers to approve more than 35,000 organisations worldwide that produce and supply parts for the sector. (more…)
The value of UKAS accredited certification
Friday, May 15th, 2009UKAS
In these economic conditions, certification is recognised as being a differentiator as well as demonstrating regulatory compliance. An increasing number of both public and private sector organisations are specifying certification by a UKAS accredited body in many of their contracts. In addition, a growing number of regulators are rewarding businesses with accredited certification through regulatory relief. (more…)
Fake Certificates
Friday, December 12th, 2008UKAS
It has recently come to UKAS’ attention that a number of organisations are creating and issuing fake UKAS certificates. These certificates come in the form of forged accreditation certificates or, often, certificates for either QMS or EMS certification bearing the UKAS accreditation symbol. (more…)
ISO and IAF announce schedule for implementation of accredited certification to ISO 9001:2008
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008ISO
ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and the IAF (International Accreditation Forum) have agreed on an implementation plan to ensure a smooth transition of accredited certification to ISO 9001:2008, the latest version of the world’s most widely used standard for quality management systems (QMS). The details of the plan are given in the joint communiqué by the two organizations as follows. (more…)
Publication of new edition of ISO 9001 expected in October-November 2008
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008ISO
A new edition of ISO 9001, the world’s most widely used quality management system standard, is being submitted for voting as a Final Draft International Standard and, subject to formal approval by the ISO membership, the publication of the revised version should be in the October-November 2008 time frame. (more…)
Happy 20th Birthday ISO 9001!
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007BSI
BSI press release 17 October 2007.
ISO 9001, the international standard for Quality Management, is 20 years old this year and it’s hard to imagine a world without it. With more than 800,000 ISO 9001 certifications worldwide, and many more organizations using it internally, this is one of the best known international standards and the one that took quality management from the production line to the boardroom. (more…)
What would make the perfect certification body audit?
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007IRCA – International Register of Certified Auditors
‘What would make the perfect certification body audit?’ is a question that is being pondered by the great, the good, and even some of the ugly within the conformity assessment industry. But whose opinion really counts? Surely that of the end user of certification. So, when we at IRCA wanted an answer to this question during the development of a new auditor certification product we went to the end users, and this news item contains a summary of the outputs. (more…)
Managers need to show support
Monday, October 1st, 2007Chartered Quality Institute
In a recent survey the CQI (Chartered Quality Institute, previously the IQA; Institute of Quality Assurance) found that managers do not always support quality improvement programmes. When asked, ‘what do you think would improve the effectiveness of your employees participating in improvement activities?, most answered ‘a commitment from top management’. (more…)