Scicchitano: You may also answer.

Mathis: I can assure you that there are very few management meetings that I sit in where that is not the question of the day. We’re actually attempting to put several things in place with our organization. One, we are proactively working with our advisory council and making sure we have the proper organization aligned with us, so we can find out from them who is our coordinating point with our accredited bodies, what it is industry specifics are looking for so we can address those clearly. We are rapping up our meetings associated with that so that we can get that input clearly. Two, in our management review meetings we are looking at our own complaint structures to see what’s happening with corrective actions and from that process we are starting to send out more information - what else do you want for us to meet your requirements in the future and really answer the value-add question. It is the topic of every day in some form or fashion; it’s the topic of most of our meetings and we don’t have all the answers to it. But we are striving to look at what we can do with risk-based assessments and looking at the things necessary to accommodate our future and it’s certainly making sure we have a full bucket of services other than just being a registrar. For example, we have just made a major change with our company to become known as BSI Management Systems, and in so doing concentrating on management systems not just being a registrar.

Sidorowicz: It’s interesting that you asked that. I was just talking to someone out at the conference this morning who came up and wanted to know what BVQI does as added value. And I got to thinking back, probably six years ago, seven years ago. We started thinking about how this has got to be more than selling a piece of paper to the client and what can we do to add value to the certification. I can’t say that I thought every other registrar thinks like that. But it seemed like we were kind of in the forefront of pushing added value, but within a year everybody had added value in their ads or in their promotional material. So it was like every registrar was thinking along the same lines, we’ve got to add more to this and I have to go along with Ron. We think about things, what can we do that would be beneficial to the client without crossing any lines. One of the things we just recently did was we put out our own interpretations document for the 9001:2000 standard. This is what BVQI understands the intent of the standard to be — not telling the client that that’s the way they have to do anything. It’s strictly the areas that we thought were more vague or gray than in the original. We don’t address every element or anything like that, but the piece we think could have been a little bit confusing to the average guy on the street, this is what we understand the intent of the standard to be. We sent that to all of our clients and it’s available to anybody that’s interested in it. So, we’ve kind of taken that approach: What can we offer that will help the client understand what they need to do.

Scicchitano: Let’s have Bob Peach weigh in here, since he has a long relationship with the RAB. Do you see a danger in expanding registrar services and potentially blurring the line between consulting and registration?

Peach: We already mentioned that you want to stay within some lines. Of course there is danger. The papers are full of the Arthur Anderson and Enron situation where the line was blatantly crossed, where they blurred the responsibility between helping and consulting and really aggressively setting up a system and then came back with a different hat saying this is okay. There is an audit basis and that’s understood, and I know it’s understood clearly by not just RAB but by the registrars and the auditors that work for them because there is that important line to cover. Now that doesn’t mean that an organization cannot help and advise as they audit, as they work with gap analysis and such. They are clearly looking to say here is where you are. They are a resource and they should always be that, but watch where that line will be as organizations go into seeking help. Now there may be organizational ways to solve that but the issue is still there on the table, absolutely.

Scicchitano: There’s another issue I’d like you to touch on. When do you see the big push for the all the companies to make their transition and, if in fact it comes in the final months of 2003, how much of a role can the accreditation system play in making sure that we see consistency among the auditors?

Sidorowicz: I don’t see where there is a problem with the accreditation system, is there? The registrars work with it clearly. They interact with it and understand the responsibilities that they have. I would anticipate a problem in the transition just because of time pressures at the end. As we’ve heard registrars say, we can make that job often at no extra cost just scheduling the reviews on schedule. Is there an issue? Is there a problem? Will it be major? I would not anticipate that it would be. We may be surprised.

Scicchitano: I have another question for the registrars. The new process model requires almost a completely different mind-set for auditors. Do you think all the third-party auditors are going to make this transition?

Sidorowicz: Actually, a lot of our auditors have pretty much been auditing as process auditors all along. Myself, when I do an audit, I don’t schedule one hour to do this element and one hour to do that element. I’ll say I’m going to block out four hours to be out at the plant and these are the kind of things I’m going to be looking at: nonconforming product and inspection test and all those other things that would apply to the plant. I pretty much start at the beginning and work my way through the end, or start at the end and work my way back to the beginning, hitting all the applicable items along the way. A lot of our auditors have been doing that. There are some that can’t get out of the 9 to 10 I’m going to do management review, from 10 to 11 I’m gong to do internal audit, from 11 to 12 I’m going to do document control. I think it’s going to be hard for them. But we do training sessions throughout the year for our auditors and I think it’s just a manner of bringing those people, I don’t want to say into line because that sounds like we’re cracking the whip, but getting them to understand the way it has to be done in the future.

Peach: Those are the same words that I heard from Ira Epstein years ago, when he was faced with shifting over from MIL-Q-9858 to the first ISO 9001. He said we’re going to have folks who can’t make it and a certain number that will. He used the same words. We’re going through the same thing, but I think to a lesser degree than that change years ago.

Scicchitano: Ira Epstein, of course, spent years with the US Department of Defense and was instrumental in introducing ISO 9000 to DoD. Frank, I understand that your firm actually did a survey of sorts of companies that were making the transition. What are you finding in terms of their greatest obstacles?

Sidorowicz: Actually we did this last fall so the numbers are a little bit out of date, but at the time we only had about 1 percent that actually transitioned. I am going to say at the time there were probably 45-50 people that got this survey. About 20 of them, I believe, actually responded to it, which was pretty good - almost 50 percent response. The items in the survey were basically along the lines of: What barriers did you see? How did you overcome them? What would you have done differently if you had it to do all over again? What kind of benefits did you see and what kind of advice would you give to people that were transitioning? It kind of broke the barriers down into people, documentation and implementation: how to get people to understand that this is an improvement, not some big change that’s just going to be more work for them; the kind of things documentation primarily has to do with. We don’t want to rewrite whole systems. So they had to understand that you didn’t have to rewrite it and that gave everyone a nice comfort level. With implementation, a lot of it was the training piece: getting people to be more understanding of what was going to be expected of them. With respect to the different format of the standard, as far as doing things differently, a lot of them said they’d get top management support sooner. This always kind of throws me again going back to that earlier question about top management not supporting it. Why would they even have it in place in the first place unless someone was telling them they had to? Other things related to participating, I thought this one was interesting. One client said they would have participated in the selection of the audit team a little more because apparently they may have gotten or must have gotten an auditor (maybe this was his first audit against the new standard) that they didn’t think was quite as process oriented as he needed to be. They wanted to have a little more say on who was going to be on the audit team. It may have been someone that they hadn’t seen before, so I thought that was an interesting answer. As far as benefits, one of them said they streamlined their whole process, which was good. They got rid of a lot of things that didn’t work that they had put in place and just left in place even though they weren’t all that great. So it gave them an opportunity to just kind of take a step back and look at what didn’t work and get rid of it. The way the standard is written now makes it easier to integrate a quality system, an environmental management system, a safety and health system, pretty much all along the same line. It’s a whole lot easier to integrate instead of having two different standards that are intentionally written differently. Going back to our question about waiting to the end to get this through, one client said they went ahead and did it right off the bat because it allowed them to concentrate on business and not worry about if they had enough time to do it. They communicated the importance of what they were doing to the employees and got their support. You have to put together a great team to do this in the first place. Don’t make it one person to do all this. It’s got to be a team effort. Facilitate, don’t be the person to get this into place. Facilitate teams getting it done. Be realistic on how long it’s going to take, emphasizing communication. Someone said be honest with employees and top management every step of the way. Don’t make things seem like a bed of roses if it’s not. There were a lot of good comments. I think it gave us a lot of insight into what was in people’s minds and it helped us change the way we approach things.

Scicchitano: Charlie, What advice are you giving to your clients with respect to how to get started with the transition?

Cianfrani: The same advice that I give them any time I go in to talk about any operation: What are the objectives here, what are we trying to accomplish and then let’s put a good process together to get accomplished what we want to get accomplished. What’s the goal, what are we trying to do? I’ve got all the standards - 12 step, 10 step, whatever you want to take. I can parade out a list of things, a homemade Gant chart that we can plug things into right off the bat. But we really have to try to understand what we’re trying to do to satisfy the overall objectives of the corporation. I don’t have a specific formula that I follow with any organization. We certainly have some things defined but we try to, as my grandfather would say, "Cut the suit to fit the cloth." Find out what the organization is trying to do and then let’s just go ahead and get it done in the most expeditious way possible. We’re not trying to heap a quality system onto an organization. We’re trying to integrate into the fabric of the organization a management system that makes sense and will help either enhance their profit or achieve their goals as a nonprofit and in a way that satisfies their customers. It’s set up to drive for continual improvement as a matter of process, not as a matter of something they have to think about all the time. It’s just embedded in the process. So that’s the thing we try to get into the management systems when we’re either starting off from scratch or making a transition. It wouldn’t be any different.

Scicchitano: Are you still looking at the requirements as a base line and if so what should companies be looking at in the way of other tools in the ISO 9000 family to perhaps move toward excellence?

Cianfrani: Absolutely. I don’t ever think we ever end up with an ISO implementation process that complies with 9001, per se. We look at the continuum of activities and processes that an organization could possibly include and do the things that make sense. The 9001:2000 standard is the baseline. It’s set up as minimum requirements. When we did the original scoping work, I remember the session where we came up with this concept of the stepping-stone approach. We’re going to start out with as a minimum the object is to be the best organization in the world. Well, that may be a little bit of a leap so let’s do the consistent pair to have the 9001 minimum requirements and then provide that stepping-stone, the 9004 guideline for performance excellence as a stepping-stone to achieving world class, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, Deming Prize, wherever you want to go with it. So when we do a project it’s always a blend of at least the 9001, 9004 mentality and certainly thinking Baldrige and the concepts that are embedded in the Baldrige criteria. It’s certainly a good thing to do and what makes sense for the organization is what should be done. So we’re always looking to migrate beyond the minimum to look at and use 9004 to the extent it makes sense to that organization.

Scicchitano: No one on the panel has spent more time working on ISO 9004 than Bob Peach has. Bob, do you think that with the change in the 2000 version we’re going to see more companies using ISO 9000?

Peach: We certainly can’t have any less. Clearly one of the purposes of the restructuring was to get the two in line and that was an instruction to the group that did it. And yet, now that’s done, will it help? The results aren’t in yet. They had to be done first and now there are other things out there. I just wrote something recently on Six Sigma’s relationship to 9004 because you can start with 9001 as a base and have a harmonized Six Sigma and 9004 structured effort and make it work. But we just don’t know. There are actually many companies, many organizations worldwide that have used 9004. And of course when you don’t have registration you don’t necessarily know what that it. And some people can look at it and use some pieces of it and that’s okay to use it that way. But 9004 clearly can be used now, and I trust would be, and some of that’s reaching top management to say now that you’ve invested in 9001, and many as we have said during this call, many have gone beyond just the minimum to the 9001 back in the ‘94 version and that’s just as it should be. I think with the attitude of how you approach 9001 requirements now will encourage that, and there it is all linked and you can start reading a bit more about 9004 and say, Hey, this is worth doing, this is where we should go. It evidently will be used more. How much more, we just don’t know.

Scicchitano: We talked a lot today about improvement. There are often less tangible benefits associated with ISO 9000 registration. Ron Mathis, I’d like to throw this out to you. Is there still marketing cachet for companies to be registered to ISO 9000, particularly the new version?

Mathis: It depends on who you’re talking to. I’m listening to everyone. Larger companies have lots of capability and move very aggressively through this process. What Larry said earlier about his first impression, well this guy now has the ability to sit back and look at it, he works within a very large organization that’s going to always be world class. But back to the smaller organizations that have a desire to say, Hey, here’s where I’m going to market this thing and make it work for us. You know I think it’s very debatable. So I would question it.

Scicchitano: I’d like to end our discussion today with a few closing thoughts from each of our panelists on ISO 9001:2000 and what the next 17 months will bring? Is the new standard good for business? Charlie, lets start with you.

Cianfrani: Well, Bob said it well. The jury’s still out on a lot of this. The earlier indication that’s mostly anecdotal is that the organizations that are using it find it to be very effective. There is an old Italian expression: In God we trust, all others bring data. Well in the US Technical Advisory Group to ISO TC 176 we’re trying to get data. We have to go out and do some very scientific surveys of how people are using the standard and what they’re getting out of it. So we’ll have some data probably in six months. Earlier evidence is that it’s proven to be effective for those who have made the transition. We’ll get the hard data and hopefully verify that hypothesis.

Scicchitano: Ron?

Mathis: You know I’d be the first to agree that we don’t have a lot of information on it. The reality of the matter is, there are x number of companies that say clearly we have a change of mind-set. And that mind-set, you know, you have people from the smaller organizations that feel that it’s a wonderful opportunity to get the management included. You know the larger organizations, they embrace all of the tools that are readily available and they define clearly good results — better management system and a better organization. But clearly for the smaller ones, you know we do an awful lot of business with small- to medium-sized companies, it’s a struggle. It's a struggle for them to get through the process. They don’t have that first and second blush and they need all the help from our 10 tips that we provide for our customer care center. Training our auditors to become more sensitive changes their mind-set to sit back and really become good process auditors and make sure they are opening up themselves. Some will clearly not make that grade. But over all you know it’s a great result when you have an organization that embraces the standard properly and says, Hey, our team, not just one person, is there. And when they do that properly you find companies that truly change their mind-set that’s in line with their skills. That did have a wonderful result.

Sidorowicz: Yeah, I absolutely agree with everything that Ron said. Going back to a comment I made earlier, the companies that have gotten into it for the right reason, have gone into it with eyes open, not just because the Big Three told them they had to or one of their customers told them they had to. The people that are going into it, even the ones that have been told they have to but have decided let’s use this, let’s not just do it because someone said you know this is something you’re going to do whether you like it or not, those are the people that are seeing the improvements on the bottom line. They’re the ones seeing improvements in employee morale, streamlined processes, better efficiency. I think it’s tremendously helpful for them. And for the ones that feel like they’re only doing it because they have to, and they don’t want to be doing it, I think they just need to open their eyes and see the potential that it could bring to their business if they decide to use it rather than abuse it, essentially. So, I think it’s a great thing for business and I’m glad to see that the changes that were made were made. I think the whole standard now makes a lot more sense than it may have in the past. Going back to other comments that were made earlier, there is nothing in there that I feel is bad business. Everything in there people are either doing or should be doing, and if they want to improve the bottom line it’s absolutely the way to go. I’ve got several clients that have gone on to win the Baldrige that started with ISO 9000 as a basis. They decided that was a good building block. They went on to win their state quality awards, they went on to win the Baldrige. I think it’s great, personally.

Beck: Well, very briefly, I think if a company is going to be world class they have to step up to world standards. This is by far and away the world’s standard for quality. It’s a leading indicator in the quality world. It’s lagging as our mil standards were. So we greatly embrace it because it helps us maintain our public trust and confidence in what we do. When we can stand up and say we’re certificated by the world standard for quality and by a world-class registrar, we have independent assessments of our systems. So we think that is worth a tremendous amount to be able to stand up to that public trust and confidence and this standard uses this.

Scicchitano: Thank you very much, I think it’s only fitting that the last word come from Bob Peach.

Peach: We’ve been talking about the importance of management support. It’s a given. But it doesn’t always come. At first, we’ve just been working with anecdotal data and a few surveys. But I think that there’s an opportunity for subjective case studies of evidence of companies that have indeed made the transition. Some of those were already pretty good and they just firmed it up. But others really found that the subjective change in the explicit requirements of the 2000 were such that they faced up to this and found it to be worthwhile both in serving customers and in their cost structure. And they learned that they will dictate what they do and not have the standard tell them. I think that there’s a place in the current literature whether it’s a Quality Progress article or how to get this across to management for the 60 percent who still haven’t made the decision to support this transition. More of that experience, short-term experience, in the transition saying this is absolutely worthwhile will help all industries that make the change.

Scicchitano: I’d like to thank all of our panelists for joining us today. It’s clear that the next 17 months hold uncertainty and opportunity for moving forward. Hopefully we can make the most of the opportunity and rise to the occasion.

Paul Scicchitano (Moderator)

Paul Scicchitano is president and publisher of QSU Publishing Company, which produces Quality Systems Update, the ISO 9000 industry's premiere business journal, and its companion publication on ISO 14000, The Environmental Management Report. QSUP also publishes comprehensive subscription databases of registered companies — the ISO 9000 Registered Company Directory North America and the ISO 14001 Registered Company Directory North America — allowing users to search more than 50,000 certificates and to perform detailed analyses with respect to the third-party phenomenon. Scicchitano regularly attends meetings of the international technical committees responsible for the ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 series of standards. He oversaw all three comprehensive studies of ISO 9000 certificate holders in the United States, which examined the potential costs and benefits associated with registration. The most recent, ISO 9000 Survey '99, was published by The McGraw-Hill Companies. Before accepting his current position in 1992, Scicchitano worked as a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer and as a national correspondent for Army Times, where he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. QSU Publishing, which was formerly part of McGraw-Hill, also produces a number of related books concerning the ISO 14000 and 9000 standards, including Ford & ISO 14001: The Synergy Between Preserving the Environment and Rewarding Shareholders and the forthcoming ISO 9000 Handbook Fourth Edition edited by Robert Peach. The company is headquartered at 3975 University Drive, Suite 230, Fairfax, VA 22030; Tel: 866-225-3122; Web: www.qsuonline.com.

Frank Sidorowicz (Panel Expert)

Frank Sidorowicz joined BVQI (NA) in August 1993 as an RAB/IRCA quality systems lead auditor. Following assignments as regional director and vice-president, he currently serves as the director of technical services and TL 9000 product manager. Sidorowicz specializes in chemical companies and educational institutions but has audited in a wide variety of industries including telecommunications, electronics and aerospace. Sidorowicz has over 23 years experience in the chemical industry including positions in both research and development and manufacturing for a leading manufacturer of lubricant additives. For eight years he was involved in R&D on wear inhibitors, rust inhibitors, viscosity index improvers, phenates, sulfonates and dispersants. He received a patent as co-inventor for development of a continuous process for sulfonating alkyl aromatics. For the next 15 years he served as quality control supervisor and environmental coordinator at the company's plant in Natchez, MS, where he was responsible for all quality assurance functions, SPC/SQC and the quality control laboratory. As environmental coordinator, he was responsible for ensuring that the plant remained in compliance with all applicable governmental environmental regulations. Sidorowicz was responsible for the application for and maintenance of operating permits for air, water and hazardous waste emissions. In addition, he developed and implemented the site's Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan and served as the pollution prevention steward for the "Responsible Care" program. Sidorowicz coordinated the plant's certification to ISO 9002 in 1991, serving as the quality administrator and management representative and conducted internal and supplier quality audits for four years. He has been involved as both a team member and lead auditor for more than 400 third-party audits to the ISO 9000, ISO 14001, QS-9000 and TL 9000 standards of a wide range of companies and has participated as a team member on environmental audits of hazardous waste disposal sites. Sidorowicz holds AA and AAS (chemical technology) degrees from Lorain County Community College (Elyria, OH) and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration from the University of Southern Mississippi, where he was employed as a member of the adjunct faculty for two years. He also serves as a member of the review board for ASQ Quality Press.

Larry Beck (Panel Expert)

Larry Beck has over 30 years experience in the military defense environment having held management positions within Lockheed Martin, Martin Marietta, Norton Christensen and General Dynamics. Positions included: director of business enterprise leadership, manager of software quality assurance, manager of electronics manufacturing, chief of procurement quality assurance and chief of quality control. Currently, he is the manager of productivity initiatives for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Dallas, with staff responsibilities to the vice president of operations and the director of manufacturing for coordinating and facilitating companywide process improvements. Because he is both a certified lead assessor to ISO 9000 and ISO 14000, he also acts as a subject matter expert with the pursuit, understanding and advancement of quality and environmental systems, processes, procedures and certifications both within the company and with other companies. Beck has a master's degree in engineering management from the University of Dallas, and a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Arlington. He is a senior member of ASQ and has been an active member since 1985. Beck has written numerous articles on advancing quality systems and authored two internal publications on the implementation of ISO 9000. In 1994, he co-authored a concept paper for the National Science Foundation entitled "Transformations to Quality Organizations" and in April 1997 was the recipient of the Distinguished Paper Award from the Decision Sciences Institute, Southwest Region. Beck is a three-time member to the Board of Examiners for the Texas Award for Performance Excellence and a returning member to the Board of Examiners to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. He also serves as the aerospace representative to the Certification Advisory Council to British Standards Institution registrar, and an Executive Certification Committee member to The Registrar Company.

Robert Peach (Panel Expert)

Robert Peach served as convenor of the Working Group that developed the original ISO 9004 Quality System Standard and was the first chairman of the Registrar Accreditation Board. He is editor of the ISO 9000 Handbook, published by The McGraw Hill Companies, and co-author of Memory Jogger 9000:2000. He established and managed the quality assurance activity at Sears Roebuck and Company for over 25 years.

Current Positions
* Editor, The ISO 9000 Handbook published by Mcraw Hill, Inc.
* Co-author, The Memory Jogger 9000:2000 publishd by GOAL/QPC
* Co-author, The ISO 9001 Standard Paraphrased, byGOAL/QPC
* Member, ANSI Z-1 Committee on Quality Assurance
* Member US TAG to ISO TC 176 Committee on Quality Management
* Principal, Robert Peach and Associates, Inc., 20 years
* Immediate past chair, Registrar Accreditation Board

Past Positions
* Quality Assurance Manager, Sears Roebuck and Company, 25 years
* Project Manager, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Consortium, 3 years
* Convenor, Working Group that developed ISO 9004, Quality Management and Quality System Elements, 15 years
* Chair, ASQ Standards Council,17 years
* Chairman, ASQ Awards Board, 8 years
* Vice President, Publications, ASQ, 2 years
* Chairman, Textile and Needle Trades Division, ASQ, 1 year
* Delegate to International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC), 15 years

* Board Member, American Association for LaboratoryAccreditation (A2LA), 6 years
* Consultant to the World Bank, evaluating quality training in developing nations, 5 years

Education and Recognitions
* BS in Business and Engineering Administration, MIT MBA, University of Chicago
* Fellow, ASQ (1970)
* Recipient of ASQ Edwards Medal (1979) and Freund-Marquardt Award (2000)
* Registered Professional Engineer, Quality Engineering 26 years
* ASQ Certified Quality Engineer, 37 years
* Instructor, Graduate School, Illinois Institute of Technology, 5 years

Ronald D. Mathis (Panel Expert)

Ronald D. Mathis, senior vice president, marketing and sales, joined BSI Inc. in January 2001. Mathis brings with him extensive skills in the sales and sales management arena along with a well-versed ISO 9000 knowledge base. Before joining BSI Inc., Mathis served for two years as vice president of marketing and sales for a competing registrar in the Washington, DC area. In addition to his ISO 9000 background, his repertoire of skills also includes telemarketing and telesales management, professional sales training, technical training and guest lecturing - all gained through his previous career experiences. With GTE, Mathis held several senior management positions including vice president of sales, vice president of marketing and sales, director of operations and director of sales. As founder and CEO of the first accreditation program in the world for marketing and sales professionals, Mathis developed working relationships with partners such as Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar and SkillSoft. After graduating from the University of South Florida with a bachelor of arts degree, he has continued to further his education through participation in various professional courses including Dale Carnegie's "Sales Advantage," Zig Ziglar's "Over The Top" and Max Sacks International's "Track Selling."

Charlie A. Cianfrani (Panel Expert)

Charlie A. Cianfrani, CQE, CRE, CQA and ASQ Fellow, has been in the quality field since 1964. He served as the vice president of quality at Fisher and Porter and joined the ISO Technical Committee soon after the original issuing of ISO 9001 in 1987. He had a leadership role in writing the 1994 edition of ISO 9001 and is currently the US designated expert to the ISO Working Group writing the 2000 edition of ISO 9001 and ISO 9004. In July 2000 Cianfrani was in Kyoto, Japan, representing the United States at the annual ISO TC176 meeting and participated in producing the FDIS (final draft international standard) version of ISO 9001 and 9004:2000. He is the co-author of ISO 9001:2000 Explained and a CD-ROM training module on ISO 9001, both published by ASQ Quality Press.

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