Week 5 – Quality Management and Workplace Contracts

QUALITY MEASURES-

• Product based
• User based
• Relativity based
• Review based
• Manufacturing based
• Value based

Quality is perception based. Meaning that what some people may believe to be a high quality may not be regarded as high quality by others. That is why a lot of industries will set a standard, such as ISO9000.

Monitering quality can form an entire industry on its own. It can be very hard to maintain quality even when you are directly involved in the process or product. Independent testing is always a good option to ensure you keep a good level of control over your quality.

ISO9000 is the most widely used quality management and accreditation system. It consists of three core standards ISO9000, ISO9001 & ISO9004

CORE REQUIREMENTS OF ISO9000

• Determine the needs and expectations of customers and other interested parties,
• Establish policies, objectives and a work environment necessary to motivate the organisation to satisfy these needs,
• Design, resource and manage a system of inter-connected processes necessary to implement the policy and attain the objectives,
• Measure and analyse the adequacy, efficiency and effectiveness of each process in fulfilling its purpose and objectives and
• Pursue the continual improvement of the system from an objective evaluation of its performance.

Unfortunately ISO9000 can require large amounts of work to gain accreditation for but may yield little result in actually improving quality. This is why in a lot of situations it is used by companies as a marketing tool.

Oscar Machen (Professionals Australia)

Oscar came in to talk about Professionals Australia, which is essentially a union. Oscar discussed a few scenarios industry professionals are faced with and how they should be handled. I unfortunately didn’t find much benefit in this presentation.