What is an "ISO 9002 Certified Factory?"

[RCW]

What is an "ISO 9002 Certified Factory?" Does that designation have any relevance to a home shop machinist?

[Dave_C]

ISO is a set of traceable standards for say, manufacturing a part or a complete product.

Generally if a factory says it is ISO XXXX (and there are a few numbers choices here) then it generally can have its proceedures traced back to whatever ISO standard they are claiming.

I'm not up on ISO standards but you can look them up on the internet pretty easy if you want to know what a number means.

Dave C.

[Mr Ron]

Companies pay big bucks to get an ISO certification. What it does is inform the world that they comply to an international set of standards. Once a company gets the certification, there is no guarantee the company complies with the standards. You will see a lot of Chinese companies with this certification. They get it to fool the public into believing they are producing quality work. ISO has no enforcement powers.

[SteveHGraham]

Are you suggesting that shady business practices take place in China? I find that pretty hard to believe!

[warmstrong1955]

ISO 9000 is supposed to be a quality control standard & set of guidelines, actually aimed at protecting the consumer. It's more or less a flow chart, with rules and requirements on design, testing, how warranties will be handled...etc etc. It can be as simple as the basic requirements of ISO, or as complicated as the company wants to make it. Started in Europe, and there were a lot of companies that wouldn't buy from a non ISO certified company. A lot of outfits got certified just for that reason....others to have a feather in their cap.

9001 covers design & manufacturing, 9002 is basically for service. I was working for a manufacturing company while they were working to get their 9001 certification. 3 full time guys...nothing but ISO 9000 crap...for a year. After they got certified, they still kept workin' on it. Lot of money.......

For us....it means pretty much..... nothing. Since it came into being in the 90's, I've seen ISO 9000 companies that are great when it comes to design, testing, most importantly customer service, and others that are absolutely worthless. I can make you lists of both....the cert made no appreciable difference in any of 'em after they got it.

You can find info here, if you kinda look a bit: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_9000_essentials

If you can't tell....I'm not a fan.....

Bill

[Rich_Carlstedt]

I believe the "code" of the ISO format, is that once you have the ISO rating, you will give preference to ISO "suppliers"...which is keeping it in the family.
It is supposed to make the company use standards of procedures ( SOP) that all share.

As others have said , some companies follow it to a tee, and others get it, and forget it..a sales gimic.

To me it means nothing.
A lot of money spent and a tag on the door or sales sheet.
It can really help a disorganized company focus on good procedures
It can also stymy innovation, if you are in a quickly changing market

Example
We had a breakdown on a 24/7 operation. Our supplier had the part Friday afternoon but would not ship it, because his ISO required clearance from the accounting department, which happened to be off that particular day, so we got it Tuesday..and a new supplier shortly there after.
They lost business due to written procedures that did not address our problem. but they are ISO rated !

[refinery mike]

Anything from ISO means that a forest of trees must die every year. Obviously if you do enough paper work for every job you will soon completely eliminate any chance of error, pollution,or politically incorrect behaviour. Mainly because your company will be out of buissines. And that because the Chinese do not have to hire thirteen paper shuffelers for every productive employee. ISO did save the life of one of our employees yesterday. He fell 200 feet off the side of a tower, there was so much paper work on the job that he hit the ground,,, Poof, downy soft. Ok, i made that part up, but i think we have one worthless paper filler outer for every worker.

[warmstrong1955]

Anything from ISO means that a forest of trees must die every year.

Exactly......

I see you are familiar with ISO too.....


Bill

[Jose Rivera]

http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_9000_essentials

Is what we get for send all the work overseas, so now we have to comply with Europe's standards.

We had ANSI Y14 for many, many years, that then became ASME Y14.5.
What Europe has done is add a few more color feathers and called it ISO. Basically the same chicken with more colored feathers, and more organized.
They tried to force us into the metric system and they have partly succeeded.

Large companies used to create their own standards for manufacturing, mechanical design and QC. They had large departments dedicated at creating and revising these documents.
This was very messy because if you where trying to produce a part and could not get a hold of their standard ... shit out of luck !!!
Now days this has become only one entity that is in charge of creating, revising and maintaining manufacturing standards based on ASME Y14, but goes way beyond. Is maintained by a company called Global Engineering Co. and produce the Standard for using on mechanical design called the DRM ... "Drawing Requirements Manual.
http://global.ihs.com/?rid=Z56&mid=5280 ... RQod7RVMDQ

My two cents is that decimal inches can be just as accurate as metric, the use of fractions is always a pain, and the big excuse why we should adopt metric, that uses no fractions, but ... talk to any European and ask them what they say when dealing with a portion of a full volume ... the same baloney ... 1/4 empty, 1/2 full, etc.

So we have been forced to accept the Metric system ... nothing wrong, it just takes some getting used to it. What I do is convert the metric numbers to inch and problem solved.

I have never had to comply with ISO, I got out of the mechanical design and machining business just in time.
Forgive me if I am wrong on what I have commented.

Now. returning to the ISO issue. Companies now, larger companies that need to coordinate with the rest of the world MUST implement ISO, otherwise you don't get any work.
I call this forced socialism ... we never have forced any country to adopt inch in order to do business with.

[platypus20]

I work for a company that was ISO certified for a while, they documented everything, had all of the equipment calibrated to the 4th decimal point, then still built the product to + or - 1/16". Didn't make for a better product, it did give 2 or 3 people jobs, following up on and maintaining records, but the product, didn't get any better or any worse, just more expensive.

[Jose Rivera]

I work for a company that was ISO certified for a while, they documented everything, had all of the equipment calibrated to the 4th decimal point, then still built the product to + or - 1/16". Didn't make for a better product, it did give 2 or 3 people jobs, following up on and maintaining records, but the product, didn't get any better or any worse, just more expensive.

Yeah!
When a company pays the worker .25$ per hour sure, they can hire a dozen people to do Q.C.
Not here, where we have a minimum wage rate and companies "play" by the rules imposed by the government.
Not until wages become equal globally we can say that we have a "Global" market. Meantime since we are governed by a bunch of wimps that worry more about the world opinion that the people's opinion ... we screwed.
They're taking advantage of our government political "correctness", they're braking us ... China as the main opportunist.

[refinery mike]

Our company lately has had to comply with ISO 14001 verifying that we do not pollute. Nothing in the air, nothing to the ground, nothing to the water. We pass every year, I sure feel sorry for that poor blind, man with no sense of smell that comes to inspect us. Nice seeing eye dog however. I get the idea that enough money can buy an ISO 14001 certification.