ISO 9000 and SEARS Quality Management System Essay

What issues do you think that a large company such as sears had to face in implementing ISO 9000 across its vast organization? Implementing ISO 9000 is not an easy task. The ISO 9000 standards originally were intended to be advisory in nature and to be used for two-party contractual situations and for internal auditing. Rather than a supplier being audited for compliance to the standards by each customer, the registrar certifies the company, and this certification is accepted by all of the supplier’s customers. Using ISO 9000 as a basis for a quality system can improve productivity, decrease costs, and increase customer satisfaction. It also have resulted in increased use of data as a business management tool, increased management commitment. As Sears is concerned after an eight year effort, the company registered its product repairs centers and in-home services quality management system to ISO 9001. The original ISO 9000:1994 only required that the organization have a documented, verifiable process in place to ensure that it consistently produces what it says it will. ISO 9000- focuses on Fundamental and vocabulary. This document provides fundamental background information and establishes definition of key terms used in the standards. How are the ISO 9000:2000 Quality management principles reflected in this example? How might these principles have helped sears address the issues you identified in the first question? Is a response to the widespread dissatisfaction that resulted from the old standards. The new standards have a completely new structure, based on eight principles – â€Å"comprehensive and fundamental rules or beliefs for leading and operating an organization† that reflect the basic principles of total quality. These eight principles were voted on, and overwhelmingly approved, at a conference in 1997 attended by 36 representatives of countries that have delegates in the TC 176 committee, charged with the responsibilities of revising the ISO 9000 standards. The eight principles consisted: customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, process approach, system approach to management, continual improvement, factual approach to decision making, mutually beneficial supplier relationships. This standard focuses on developing, documenting,  and implementing procedures to ensure consistency of operations and performance in production and service delivery processes, with the aim of continual improvement, and supported by fundamental principles of total quality.