Andy Hall wrote:

Quality managers revel in this stuff and talk about "delighting" their
customers. This has always concerned me.

It should!!

As one of the unhappy people saddled with writing and agreeing the
BS9000 crap, I KNOW that a BS/ISO9000 quality standard is not worth the
hot air and paper that surrounds it. It was originally set up as a MIL
spec to provide traceability for the US space program, but proved too
expensive to continue without being made toothless. Reliable products
stem from a "won't fail" philosophy which pervades the whole design and
manufacturing process. The Japanese generally have this, to some extent
the Germans also, but they don't start from an ISO9000 specification and
hope to achieve it, they design the product and it will normally
automatically pass any 9000 series requirements. Guess whose products
have the best general track records?! (AND customer satisfaction). The
Chinese are coming up fast. The better design and build operators can
equal almost anything the West can do, reliably and much, much cheaper.
I've seen a few large companies which have this philosophy in the US and
the UK, but most of them have now ceased manufacturing their own
products and buy in to their own specifications which are much higher
than 9000. A lot of small companies locally who make a good product are
finding that they must have ISO9000 certification to sell the product
and the paper work + labour costs are putting them out of business. The
business then goes offshore, never to return!

The most damning inditement of the whole QA process was the comment by
a MOD QA man who said to me "When did you last see a military product
which worked correctly!"

I think I'd consider a condensing boiler if the Japanese built them,
until then, it's far cheaper to keep my reliable piece of cast iron.


Regards
Capitol