South Florida Business Daily

What quality management system can you reccomend for a 1 person shop?

I do technical work for large companies with lots of risk and they ask all their suppliers to be compliant in safety and quality management. The safety programs, I have covered. But I don't know how to implement a quality program that won't be hugely cumbersome. I am a sole proprietor, one man show. Your thoughts are much appreciated.

Public Comments

1. Dear One Man Show, For about $125.00 you can download the ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems Requirements. ISO 9001 is, by FAR, the number one quality system in use today. If you have actually read the darned thing, you will at least be able to speak the quality language and that's a good thing. If you read the standard carefully, you'll see you can create a compliant system with just one policy, some measurable quality objectives and six required procedures (most people like to see an organizational chart and a process interaction chart, but these are not strictly "required"). This will only take about 4-6 pages. Then read over everything else, and see if you do all that stuff. If you do, consider a "self declaration of compliance." You won't claim to be "certified" by an auditor (unless you are willing to pay $2,000.00 for an audit), you'll just say (if it's true) that you COMPLY with the standard. On the other hand, while suppliers LIKE you to be certified, most of them won't REQUIRE you to be certified as a condition of the sale. Just tell them you are a one person shop and being ISO certified is expecting a little too much. This should work pretty well, but it depends on your customer's needs and expectations. Good luck!