Iso-9002

[DeltaTango]

good evening

I have just learned that the company I'm flyin for (small time single Cessna), is approved for something that is called ISO-9002.

Does anyone know what this standard states?

cheers

DT

[shuttlebus]

DeltaTango,

ISO 9002 was a Standard for Quality Management Systems. (They are commonly called quality assurance (QA) systems but they don't necessarily assure anything :D :D :D )

(In the UK, it was British Standard, BS EN ISO 9002 as I remember, where BS is British Standard, EN is EuroNorm and ISO is the International Standards Organisation).

There used to be ISO 9001, 9002 and 9003. However, they have all now been superceded by a new revision of ISO 9001.

I have been out of the loop on QA procedures for a while, but I have a copy of the Standards back in the office, so I can get back to you with more details once I get the gerbil back up to speed.

However, basically QMS can be summed up as... "Say what you are going to do and then do what you say..." A "system can run from a single piece of paper to volumes that would fill a library and are a great cause of headaches amongst the management types, mainly by all the form filling :{ :{

However, I guess you will get all this explained to you when you start.

If people are interested I'll get a post sorted off-line so I can get it all straight and then paste it in here.... saves the phone-bill and will improve the readability about 200% :O :O

Regards,

Shuttlebus

[john_tullamarine]

A little clarification ..

The ISO umbrella is an international set of Standards covering all sorts of things. Individual nations have similar sorts of Standards and, in some cases, simply adopt the ISO document by rebadging it.

A Standard is a prescriptive document which puts a fence around whatever the subject is and defines a minimum set of what is/is not acceptable/required in respect of the particular matter to which the Standard relates. If you check at your local library you will probably find copies of some Standards to which you can refer to get an idea of the beast. Alternatively this site (http://www.standards.com.au/catalogue/script/Details.asp?DocN=ISO93418443762&refByProducts=1#refByProducts) will give you a bit of an idea ....

FAR/JAR 23 and 25, for instance, are examples of Standards, although not tied up with the ISO family.

There is a raft of QA standards which have changed considerably over the years and will continue to be refined in the light of experience.

ISO 9000 refers generally to a series of QA Standards under that number (often referred to as the 9000 series).

The head Standards in this series at the time your employer received accreditation were ...

ISO 9001 is a Standard which covers design, manufacture and distribution. An organisation which has been third party (ie by someone else) audited and deemed to have the necessary systems and procedures in place may be accredited (if the auditing organisation is approved to do so). This permits a marketing advantage and, in many countries, is a necessary prerequisite to gaining government business contracts.

ISO 9002 addresses manufacture (or provision of services in your case) and distribution

ISO 9003 addresses distribution.

To some extent one can view these three Standards as forming a bit of a pyramid with 9002 encompassing 9003 and 9001 encompassing 9002 and 9003.

An individual organisation may elect only to address one part of the Standard's ambit .. eg your organisation may address the service provision aspects of 9002 but not have any interest in distribution of goods.

The ISO documents, by themselves, are not a great deal of practical use as they are very "sketchy" in their content. An organisation uses these Standards as high level guides in the preparation of company documentation (eg Operations Manuals, Maintenance Manuals, etc.) One needs to go to other guidance material to assist in the preparation of in-house paperwork.

Your company is not "approved" to 9002, as such. If accredited by an acceptable third party organisation, this accreditation simply attests that the company has process, procedures, documentation etc., systems in place and, if all goes well, ought to be able to do what it sets out to do in a reasonably predictable and repeatable manner not inconsistent with the requirements of the Standard.

The origin of these Standards lies in the need for the customer to have some confidence in his/her supplier's ability to do whatever it is might be ordered by the customer and to do so in a manner consistent with regulatory requirements.

There are three main choices for the customer

(a) take your chances .. might be OK if you are buying a nickels and dimes item at the supermarket, but not a satisfactory way to do business at the multi-million dollar end of town

(b) go in and audit the supplier yourself .. and this is done often by larger customers regardless of the supplier's accreditation. However, this approach is not cost effective for a smaller customer and, of course, the small customer doesn't have the clout to require the supplier to permit such an audit

(c) the 9000 series Standards address the needs of the small to mid-range customer who wants some assurance that the supplier is up to the job but can't establish that directly. By the use of third party accreditation, the presumption is that an independent and competent third party has done the audit work which the small customer can't do and the customer then presumes that the accredited supplier is OK.

Doesn't work all that well all the time but is better than not having such a system.

[OzExpat]

And, if memory serves me correctly, the accreditation is only for one year. The accredited organisation has to go thru the same audit every year to renew the accreditation. This accreditation thing isn't a cheap exercise, but it DOES have significant advantages for the organisation that embraces it completely.

As a matter of interest, I believe that some aspects of Qantas's activities have held accreditation continuously for many years.

[shuttlebus]

john_tullamarine,

Thank you for your post - I couldn't have covered it better myself (probably have done worse, if the truth were told :eek: :eek: :eek: )

OzExpat,

Indeed you are correct - a number of institutions offer accreditation including Lloyds and BSI here in the UK.

Happy flying...

Regards,

Shuttlebus

[Genghis the Engineer]

It's all a British invention originally, ISO 9001, 9002 and 9003 are closely derived from BS 5750 parts 1, 2 and 3.

Compared to any other aviation management structure you'll actually not find it much different. You may find that your company FOB or equivalent standing orders book is called a "Quality Manual" or something similar, but the basic principle of best practice (or at-least working practice) being documented, followed, and periodically audited to make sure that's what you're really doing is nothing unusual to most aviation professionals.

For an aircraft operator, the biggest differences between what you've seen before and ISO9002 are likely to be twofold. Firstly you'll get periodically audited by the "accreditation body" as well as by the CAA and internally - the difference being that the accreditation body will be keener on checking that you're sticking to procedures, whilst the CAA is keener on checking that you're doing things safely, and simply tweaking procedures if you're not. Secondly, it won't just be the aircraft operations that are subject to procedures and auditing - accounts, publicity, sales, cleaning, etc. will all to a greater or lesser extent be subject to written procedures and periodic auditing (poor darlings ;-) )

How it works in practice varies from company to company. Good ones will use it to establish and stick to best working practice - some will be doing the absolute minimum to get accreditation because they really just need it to fulfil some contract or other and really don't care about it's usefulness. A few others (particularly those who have just gone ISO 9000 via a particularly over-enthusiastic quality manager) may be burying everybody under unnecessary procedures and paperwork in the name of "quality" - that usually only lasts a year or so but is profoundly irritating if you're in the middle of it.

G