Common Mistakes

We make sure you avoid these

Let us help you avoid these common mistakes when developing, implementing, or maintaining your management system.

Over-Documentation

Many companies look at a Management System Standard and interpret it to mean that everything anyone does has to be documented. Companies often create large amounts of documentation that is difficult to create, edit, and manage. Because of this difficulty it is common for the documentation and how the company actually operates to become more and more separated over time. This not only makes compliance difficult, but eliminates all of the advantages of having documentation. There is a balance that needs to be achieved between controlling activities with documentation and allowing for flexibility and creativity in daily activities. Finding this balance is critical to any organization and is something that we spend much effort on with our clients.

Lack of Management Commitment

Even with the best of intentions, without top management commitment to your Management System you will have severe difficulties. Often management becomes interested in registration because it is something customers demand or can be used as a market advantage. While these are certainly not insignificant reasons to want registration, they should not drive the development or management of the Management System. Focusing on the sales aspect of registration can lead companies to create systems "just to get registered", which in the long term cause both internal and registration problems.

Any Management System must be seen as a tool that the organization can use to increase efficiency, reduce errors, and effectively achieve desired results. These factors directly impact the bottom line in equal, if not greater proportion, to any increase in sales due to registration alone. Clydesdale helps its clients gain buy in and acceptance of the management system at all levels by demonstrating what can be achieved when the “ISO” system truly becomes part of how you do business.

Failure to Integrate

Companies, once registered, often find themselves in a position where the documentation and systems they created become the "ISO system" and not the way the company actually does business. The cost of maintaining such as system is high. Companies may find they need dedicated staff to try and maintain the documentation, and/or that they have to hustle each year before the auditor arrives to make everything "compliant", and/or that the systems slow them down making it more difficult to do business. While this is often the result of over-documentation or lack of management commitment, it is also symptomatic of trying to fit your business into “ISO” instead of the other way around. Management System Standards when used as a tool, can be your guide to efficient and effective systems. If you view your Management System as "the ISO system", you will tend to build it based on what you think the registrar or your customer wants, and not necessarily what makes good business sense.

Clydesdale spends a lot of effort showing the benefit of using Management Systems as tool to improve the business as part of its Accelerated Registration Programs®. This often means going beyond the requirements of the standard or interpreting the standard in such a way as to relieve perceived burdens.