Guide to ISO for Small Business

With the release of ISO 2001:2000 small businesses everywhere can establish a quality program which makes them compliant with the standard. We have all heard the horror stories of the cost and time to gain ISO compliance, but the latest release no-longer makes the program out of reach. Every small or medium size business operation can be ISO compliant at some level. The new standard has switched the emphasis from procedural to process planning. Any business in any sector of the economy has no reason not to put an ISO compliant quality program in place.   This guide provides the foundation steps which can lead a business owner or manager to establishment of a cost effective quality program for their business activity. There are a number of basic activities even an individual with little or no formal quality training can do to get the process started. Much like any other activity, sometimes it does make sense to seek inputs from outside the company from an individual or group that can provide timely, cost effective advice. Often they will have you follow these same basic activities as a first step.


Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• Determine what level of a quality program your customers are demanding. Often small and medium business operations must be able to show compliance to the ISO program, which doesn’t automatically require full certification by an outside agency. The ability to deliver a quality manual, which documents compliance, often is sufficient. An alternative to full certification maybe your small business’ willingness to be audited by your end customer.
• Define your current business processes. The first step is to roughly outline the normal sequence of how your company functions on a daily basis. It is important here to keep the focus on what is being done right now, not what you would like for the future. Do not overlook any part of your business. Sometimes using a simple process flow diagram helps or just writing down how work gets done in every department is a start. Talk with the employees performing daily activities, don’t assume things are getting done in the manner you instructed them originally.
• Keep your process simple at the start. Don’t worry about whether the steps match the ISO program, just apply the KISS formula (Keep It Simple Stupid) at the beginning and attempt to capture the Who, What, Where and How of each business activity. There is plenty of time to focus on continuous improvements once the basic program is in place. You may want to capture the improvement ideas or needs on a separate piece of paper or computer file.
• Explain what you are doing to every employee and the expected benefit. Communication is a real key to the successful deployment of a quality program. The end result must be a statement of how activities are conducted and then an audit to establish that work is being done as stated in your quality program. This can cause a lot of uneasiness in today’s environment of job reductions and out sourcing. Make it clear why you are asking for the details of how work is done and how the inputs will be used in the future.
• A good ISO compliant program does not require volumes of paperwork. The latest standard took the required procedures from 18 to 6, so there is a lot of flexibility in what sections apply. A general guide is that any given procedure for a small business should not be more than two (2) pages or in worse case, never more than six (6) pages. This means, that as a small business, you could have a quality manual well under twenty (20) type written pages.

The official source of ISO for Small Business is the ISO 9000 page at Business.com