badge-less SME? The way to be!

摘要

Tim O'Hanlon, a director of Eurospan Developments Ltd, looks at the issues arising from the traditional approaches to quality management in SMEs.The jury is no longer out for advocates of all versions of ISO 9000. It has reached its verdict and found against the defence: the standard simply does not fit. It has surely been proven that ISO 9000 removes much of the flexibility that gives SMEs a competitive edge. Who writes the procedures in the first place? While the procedures are being written, who answers the phone, processes the orders and wins new business? You cannot write into a procedure that 'everyone does a bit of everything', yet it is this very attribute that gives SMEs the flexibility that is lost in larger organisations.