A QUALITY MANAGEMENT TRAINING SYSTEM ON ISO

STANDARDS FOR ENHANCING COMPETITIVENESS OF SMES

Nunzio Casalino, Alessandro D’Atri

CeRSI - Centro di Ricerca sui Sistemi Informativi - LUISS “Guido Carli” University

Via O. Tommasini 1, Rome 00162, Italy

Ludmil Manev

ECQ - European Center for Quality Ltd.

135, Tzarigradsko Shousse Blvd., Office Express Building, fl.4, Sofia 1784, Bulgaria

Keywords: Quality management and training, e-learning, change management, ISO standards, quality process, SMEs

development, knowledge management.

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to introduce and discuss the benefits of on-line training, in quality control and

quality management, as a support for professionals and managers of SMEs (Small and Medium

Enterprises), to contribute to the improvement of the activities and of business performance objectives of

their organizations. This kind of training includes topics on: managing quality, quality process, auditing,

total quality, ISO standards, mistake proofing, and more. The paper describes the expected benefits

according with the preliminary results of an European project aiming to create and validate an on-line

system in the field of quality management and to provide an effective training on quality in the SMEs. The

international standards that are covered by the project are: ISO 9001 (quality management system), ISO

14001 (environment management system) and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Control of the Critical

Points). Others users could be also students, disadvantaged people and all people who show interest in the

quality management systems.

1 INTRODUCTION

Some authors consider as a first example of quality

control the one carried on, about 3000 B.C, during

the construction of the Tower of Babel, when this

activity was described as one of the responsibilities

of the craftsman, i.e. of the person who actually

created the product. On the other side, more

recently, from the beginning of the industrial

revolution, the quality control was moved as a

responsibility of a specific person, the one who

controls the working process, i.e. the process leader.

Thus the relation between producer and surveyor, as

well as the one between clients and suppliers, is not

changed and this separation of responsibility still

exists. The first informal methods for quality control

have been developed during the industrialization

period, but their relevance strongly increased during

the First World War, needing a new approach for

improving in a short time the quantity and quality of

war products. After, in the period between the two

World Wars, several quality sampling approaches

were developed, as well as the introduction of

statistical analysis in quality control and monitoring.

In the period after the Second World War the

industrial manufacturing costs strongly increased

and lead to reduced profits. Quality was moved to

the prevention of defects, before or during the

production process, being more effective in the

expenditure and leading to considerable savings.

Thus the idea for quality assurance appeared. The

keyword is now “prevention” instead of “finding”

defects. Various recent studies have shown that

when an organization starts a quality assurance

process, this process does not imply only procedural

issues, but there are also two key underlying features

to generate valuable results: the way in which

quality principles are adopted and the journey to run

the certifying process. Others studies in the

literature, as the ones analyzing the experiences of

the introduction of ISO standards in SMEs, discuss

the need of having a training process for workers.

229

Casalino N., D’Atri A. and Manev L. (2007).

A QUALITY MANAGEMENT TRAINING SYSTEM ON ISO STANDARDS FOR ENHANCING COMPETITIVENESS OF SMES.

In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - HCI, pages 229-235

DOI: 10.5220/0002412502290235

 SciTePress

This learning need is related to the aims of the

organizational structure rearrangement, and to the

improvement and documentation of the business

processes. People involved in these processes should

investigate, explicit the new working procedures and

the documents, apply them. During this procedure,

several overlapping and voids are frequently found

in different activities and the search for their

solutions results in a discovery of new knowledge

and in taking into account previous experiences. The

analysis of these processes introduces new ways of

learning (Mertens and Leonard, 1996). Training

companies and institutions can, therefore, take

advantage of the generated knowledge and reapply it

in order to promote learning. Learning approaches

such as “learned lessons” or “best practices” shape

what is known as “knowledge generated in the

working processes”

(Peluffo et el., 2002). The

analysis and continuous improvement of these

processes offer an extraordinary opportunity to learn

and to make explicit the knowledge that is usually

applied. The above approach could be exemplified

in the activities composing the processes of

enrolment, registration, evaluation, didactic and

material development. The analysis and

improvement of these processes allow the

development of new capacities as the ones that today

are used in the design of training workshops,

training and evaluation contents, etc. In terms of

knowledge management, documentation activity is a

process of knowledge codification and in this

activity “the abuse of codification can reduce the

learning spaces and produce in the long term

stagnation in the evolution of the organization”

(Villavicencio, 2002). The documentation of such

processes that support the accumulation and

generation of knowledge has a strong relation with

the codification done during the quality certification

processes. The relevant knowledge is collected and

written in quality manuals according with

established procedures. In particular a quality policy

is necessary to provide a clear strategy for the

vocational training process, to be used by the

persons in charge of quality management and also to

distribute the responsibilities of each process.

Recently, quality management has been accepted, by

many national and international organizations, as a

main approach for providing accurate and reliable

description and implementation of clients’

requirements in all aspects. All published standards

describe the list of activities the organizations should

do in order to achieve their specific objectives. The

set of standards ISO 9000 are international standards

concerning quality management systems. An

increasing number of clients recently require goods

or services suppliers’ to accept exactly defined

quality approaches as mandatory in order to

demonstrate their possibilities.

2 QUALITY MANAGEMENT

AND NEED OF QUALITY

MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

The international standard ISO 9000:2000 defines

quality as: “The possibility of combination of

inherent characteristic of product, system or process

to meet the requirements of customers and other

interested parties. The product becomes a result

from a system of actions, which use resources for

transforming of input elements into output ones”.

The term “quality” could be combined with

adjectives such as bad, good or excellent. Quality

could be defined as:

 conformity with client’s requirements - the

characteristics of products (or services) need to

be the closest is possible with the declared or

suggested clients’ requirements;

 conformity with client’s specifications - the

production process is organized, operated and

controlled in such a way that obtained products

and/or services correspond to the specifications;

 availability - the product or service is available

only if the conditions for its conformity with

requirements and specifications are satisfied.

ISO 9000:2000 defines the term quality management

as: “Coordinated actions for management and

control of an organization concerning quality”.

Management and control concerning quality

includes the definition of a quality policy and of

quality objectives, the planning, the quality control,

the quality assurance, and the quality improvements.

In other words an organization should have a

working system providing: effective operations

control and eliminating the nonconformities of all

stages of economic activity. The major approach to

quality assurance is to create awareness for

prevention of potential problems in a way that these

problems are predicted and eliminated before they

evolve. This is a totally different and more complex

approach in comparison with the traditional quality

control, where the service is accepted as satisfactory

when the final product do not have defects. The

main requirements for quality assurance are:

management devoted to the idea of quality; defined

quality objectives; documented quality management

system; effective surveys of the quality management

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system; developing of a company culture and of an

appropriate staff training; economy of resources and

time; reduced quantities of nonconforming products.

The problems, connected to quality, are the

impossibility to meet the expectations/requirements

and the impossibility to execute the delivery terms in

time. Incapable management and the deliverers do

not fulfill their obligations because what should have

been done was not explained to the person in charge

of the action. The executor was familiar with the

necessary actions to be taken, but has not performed

them in the appropriate way. In order to solve their

problems connected to quality, SMEs should realize

and implement a quality management system, which

assures that the activity has been performed in the

proper way (ISO 9000 - Fundamentals and

Vocabulary). The QMS is useful to control all the

activities executed and the quality achievement. It

should include: clear goals; an effective organization

structure; specified responsibilities; defined

procedures and processes, included the requirements

for staff training; specified criteria and standards.

The effectiveness of quality management depends

on the system and the procedures as well as the

culture of each employee (Tuttle, 1993). It is

absolutely necessary that all employees realize the

importance of achieving the required quality and

quality achievement should not sustain the tendency

to the reduction of production costs. Because of the

limited effectiveness of other methods, organizations

more and more often are applying principles of

quality assurance when solving different problems

concerning quality. Customers want to be sure that

quality could be achieved, will be achieved and had

been achieved in the past. More and more of them

appreciate if they have good QMS and if they give

them the possibility to evaluate it by an independent

organization.

3 QUALITY ASSURANCE AND

MANAGEMENT STYLE FOR

SMALL ORGANIZATIONS

The goals of quality assurance standards are to

formulate such the implementation of a management

system will constantly assure the quality required.

By deciding to implement a quality system in

conformity with the series ISO 9000 standards, the

managers should to adopt a formalized management

style. The ISO 9000 standards are formulated to be

applied in all spheres of production and services, and

in any situation. Standards are not medical

prescription which should be performed literally, but

they rather define what should be done by the

management. In the realization of a QMS, every

organization should understand its main

requirements and principles in conformity with ISO

9000. The result of what has been done is reflected

on the quality manual of the organization. Quality

represents a strategic philosophy of enterprise

management in the actual globalization, based on the

overall commitment of management and employees,

towards customer satisfaction and a continuous

improvement of products, services and management

(Hand and Plowman, 1992). The series of ISO 9000

standards on QMS can effectively facilitate them in

achieving that objective. The customers demand

products with characteristics, which satisfy the needs

and expectations. A QMS allows to analyze

customers’ requirements, define the processes,

which contribute to the production of a good, to be

acceptable for the customer, and keep the processes

in control. A QMS gives to the organization and its

customers the awareness that it is in condition to

offer products, which meet the requirements. The

quality policy and the objectives should be

determined in order to give terms of reference for

the organization management (Oakland, 1992). Both

of them determine the hypothetical results and help

the organization to implement the resources for the

achievement of these results. The quality policy

gives the framework for the establishment and

review of the quality objectives. The quality

objectives must be consistent with the quality policy

and the engagement to continual improvement and

their accomplishment must be measurable. The

quality objectives achievement could have a positive

effect on the product quality, on the operative

effectiveness and the financial results and thus, on

the satisfaction and trust of the parties interested. An

atmosphere in which people are motivated and QMS

functions effectively could be created through the

management. The quality management principles

should be taught to: establish quality policy and

objectives of the organization; assure that the

appropriate processes have been implemented to

meet the customers’ requirements and to achieve the

quality objectives; assure that the effective QMS has

been implemented; compare better the results

achieved and the quality objectives. The methods of

the QMS are based on the main business

organization principles and approaches. They allow

to identify strong and weak points of the

organization; consist of requirements for evaluation

and continual improvement.

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4 TRAINING ON QUALITY

ASPECTS AND ITS BENEFITS

With tight budgets and the international

competitiveness increasing, SMEs are looking for

additional ways to create and sustain organizational

knowledge. The continuous training, related to the

aspects of quality management, it is fundamental

because this field is subject to several shifts and

implementations related to procedural aspects and

legislative changes. Such situation mostly interests

the SMEs, in how much very often managed by

people with a reduced knowledge in this field.

Absurdly, such subjects don’t perceive the added

value that a good QMS can introduce to their

activities. In fact they often consider it, as expensive

rules that stiffen their organizations. In this field it is

important, therefore, not only an initial training, to

awaken employees to adopt methodologies for the

achievement of quality, but it is necessary to make

available instruments to make possible a process of

continuous training for an effective management of

the competences. This implicates that won’t be more

necessary, above all for the SMEs, to periodically

remain without collaborators or workers, because

busy for the training activity and often in

geographically far-away places. At the same time,

simply using own personal computer, employees

will be facilitated, and perhaps induced to learn and

know the main quality principles. Thanks to these

technologies, it is possible to acquire knowledge in

small doses (divided in more parts linked among

them, usable in few minutes). This activity don’t

reduce productivity of the workers because they stay

on the place of job. With the rapid increase in

corporate of high-speed Internet connections and a

younger workforce that has grown up using

computers, e-learning has become a very cost

effective and efficient training method. This

modality allows people to explore interactive

simulations and test various scenarios on the screen,

making the training much more realistic and

understandable than typical classroom training.

These repeatable simulations provide also privacy

for the learner, so that a person can feel free to

repeat sections and to try different simulations. E-

learning has become a very effective training

method that can reduce costs and improve the

effectiveness of training courses. It is not a panacea,

and it will never replace traditional training methods

in all situations, but it is another way to produce

sustained learning, and most organizations should

have it included in their training activities. Many

benefits can be identified for the business:

 significant reduction of costs associated with

teacher fees and materials;

 reduction of learning time and amount of time

in which employees are away from their jobs;

 short videos or exercises allow to verify if a

learner has reached the objectives of a lesson;

 a user’s progress can be monitored by a

supervisor.

And others for the learner:

 advanced learners can skip the known contents;

 beginners may determine their progress,

eliminating frustration;

 lessons build upon one another and may be

taken in any order;

 anytime-anywhere learning can greatly increase

knowledge retention;

 learners can view or print a single page with

quick start job aids that give step-by-step

procedures or graphic workflow charts

illustrating tasks to be performed.

It can be very expensive for companies to bring their

subject matter experts into the classroom, especially

when it requires multiple training sessions and an

high frequency training schedule. In fact, when the

courses are properly chosen, there is a good

possibility that they will offer a considerable cost-

savings over traditional learning methods and

produce equal or greater learning results. One very

large IT company has saved some $200 million per

year on the cost of training its employees worldwide

by switching to web-based education for the most

widely needed and time-critical courses. Another

large firm saved close to $80 million by providing

the majority of their new hire training into neatly

packaged and highly interactive on-line courses.

These large savings are produced by greatly

reducing travel costs, less time off from work for the

new employees, better deployment of time for the

subject matter experts and these savings were

achieved without the loss of any effectiveness in the

training, as the training scores were as high, if not

higher, in over 90% of the workers (Omnex, 2006).

5 VIRTUOSE: A QUALITY

MANAGEMENT TRAINING

SYSTEM

The project “Virtual Online system for Education on

quality” under “Leonardo da Vinci” program (Pilot

Project BG/04/B/F/PP-166024), is addressed

towards Vocational and Educational Training in the

field of quality management systems (QMS).

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“Leonardo da Vinci” is a program which aims at

implementing the policy of European Union in the

field of professional training, using the trans-

national collaboration and experience for improving

the quality, encouraging the innovations and

disseminating good professional practices and

systems in Europe. The aim of the project is to

create a web-based system and an off-line version of

it (on DVD-Rom) in the field of QMS development

and implementation, to provide effective training on

quality and to facilitate the training of the SMEs

workers. The actual international standards included

in the project are: ISO 9001:2000 (quality

management system), ISO 14001 (environment

management system) and HACCP (Hazard Analysis

and Control of the Critical Points). The project is

coordinated by the Bulgarian ECQ (European Center

for Quality) in collaboration with others main

institutions of European Union as: “TÜV - Hellenic

Certification Register” - Greece; “Bulgarian

Industrial Association” - Bulgaria; “Institute for

Postgraduate Studies” at University of National and

World Economy - Bulgaria; “Center of Research on

Information systems” of the LUISS University -

Italy. The system is available in four languages -

English, Italian, Greece and Bulgarian. The direct

beneficiaries of the project are professionals,

decision-makers and managers of SMEs of the

partner countries, but it is also possible that students,

disadvantaged people and all people who show

interest in the quality management systems may find

it useful. The project includes the development of a

software product which will provide an efficient

QMS training system and will meet the needs of

SMEs for professional education of their staff. The

training covers the following international standards:

ISO 9001:2000, ISO 14001:1996 and HACCP. In

addition to traditional text contents for self-

education and self-evaluation, the project gives the

support of a “virtual teacher” to present the whole

contents to the trainees. The purpose of creating

such a “virtual teacher” is to combine distance and

traditional training and thus to be useful for different

kinds of users. This defines the system as an

innovative form of vocational and educational

training. The on-line method of VIRTUOSE system

eliminates the conventional approaches with real

attendance and gives equal rights and opportunities

to both men and women, without discrimination by

race or social status. The development of such

flexible training system is an innovative learning

methodology, which is suitable for both business-

oriented people and people with limited time for

increasing their competence in this specific field.

6 FEATURES AND

ADVANTAGES

The system provides some functionalities for the

web-based administration of courses and learners.

All important features can be accessed with a

standard web-browser. The platform accepts every

learning material created with standard authoring

software or in textual version. An advantage is that

the system virtually supports any kind of course

material that can be run on a web-server. It provides

a specific flexibility, essential in today’s training

activities. Actually the homepage gives the

possibility to gain access to the three standards: ISO

9001:2000, ISO 14001 and HACCP.

Figure 1: The VIRTUOSE homepage.

There is, besides, a section with the description of

the platform and the contacts of the partners of the

project. VIRTUOSE offers an innovative approach

to the training activities. A virtual teacher reads the

contents, thus distance training is combined with the

traditional courses made locally (blended learning).

Figure 2: A virtual teacher takes a lecture on ISO 9001

standard.

A QUALITY MANAGEMENT TRAINING SYSTEM ON ISO STANDARDS FOR ENHANCING COMPETITIVENESS

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233

In the section ISO 9001, there is a textual part, with

the optional possibility of an audio version. The

system includes a QMS training and self-evaluation

modules for ten selected industrial sectors:

 chemical and pharmaceutics industry;

 machine engineering;

 oil and mining;

 agriculture;

 food processing;

 wood processing and furniture;

 textile;

 tourism;

 IT and electronics;

 construction and building.

It is possible to view or download: a training

manual, a quality manual, various quality models

and forms with instructions and suggestions.

Besides, at the end of every section, there is an

evaluation area with multi-choice test and

assessment forms.

Figure 3: An evaluation test.

This on-line training system on quality control and

quality management can help professionals and

managers of SMEs to contribute to the improvement

of the activities and to the business performance

objectives of their organizations. This kind of

training includes topics on: managing quality,

auditing, total quality, ISO standards, quality

process, mistake proofing, and more. The platform

can be divided into four distinct modules:

 the personal information of learners;

 an easy-to-use administration section for the

tutor or the teacher;

 a download page for course contents and the

off-line navigation;

 an additional module to access to periodic

release of new contents.

Data are encrypted (SSL encryption) and it is

possible to check the points that employees received

during their individual evaluation test. Each course

includes several components which can be showed

or downloaded separately. Course components are

audio-lectures, scripts in Html and Pdf format files,

assignments and their solutions, exercises with

multimedia elements, etc. The learners can select the

components they wish to obtain from the list and

download them. The system decompresses the

incoming components and stores them on the local

hard disk. Furthermore, there is a table of contents

that can be used to navigate through the different

courses. The platform offers extremely flexible

teaching schedule appropriate for busy people with

limited time for training. During the realization of

the assigned activities, several workshops took place

in the project partner countries: Bulgaria, Greece

and Italy. The purpose of the workshops was to

introduce the requirements and the benefits for the

beneficiaries. The participants in the workshops

received detailed information about the

implementation of the standards mentioned, the

advantages from implementing ISO, the issues and

problems concerning the implementation of

HACCP. The participants had also the opportunity

to ask questions to consultants and professionals on

quality, concerning the implementation of a

standardization process.

7 CONCLUSIONS

Studies on the process of information technology

acquisition (Davis et al, 1994) clearly show that

these systems go through several evolutionary

stages. During this development the priority in order

to succeed doesn’t seem to be tied only to the

acquisition process, but mainly to the paths of

learning and organizational change. Experience

suggests that these paths should be designed and

carefully managed in order to allow the acquisition

and effective use of ICT applications by the users

and the whole enterprise. The scheme followed in

the courses proposed by the system, for the

implementation of an effective QMS, consists of the

following basic steps:

 a quick introduction to ISO 9000 standards;

 a general review of the components of the ISO

9000 standards;

 a model for the realization and implementation

of an effective quality assurance system;

 the realization of a proper organization structure

and the responsibilities allocation.

The traditional methodology for the training, in fact,

results incomplete to furnish a suitable medium in

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the professional training field, because of dynamic

and continuous changes in the ICT sector and the

increasing demand of knowledge more and more in

the quality field (Casalino, D’Atri et al., 2005).

VIRTUOSE can contribute to the success of the

SMEs. The strategy is based on the creation of a

system for the training that meets the distance

learning with the traditional benefits; therefore the

two different methodologies are integrated. In fact,

on one side the distance statement is a comfortable

method for the training of a vast entourage of people

within the QMS but, on the other hand a lot of

people doesn’t believe in the effectiveness of such

method of statement because of the lack of a teacher

that mostly involves the trainees. To get round such

problem, VIRTUOSE assures a “virtual teacher” that

speaks slowly, with a clear voice and a perfect

intonation. Therefore VIRTUOSE proposes an

innovative approach for the training with the virtual

teacher that holds the lessons, so that the distance

training is combined with a similar direct contact.

VIRTUOSE also offers auto-evaluation forms

through which the learners can verify the acquired

knowledge level. Such forms at the end of every

subject, allow the worker to immediately verify the

acquired knowledge through the portal or by tutor e-

mail. He will personally contact the single

employees to assist them during the training period.

The current research project, that we are completing,

includes the analysis of some indicators and specific

key aspects that regard the current situation and

implementation of quality management culture in

the European SMEs. These are:

 what is the current situation of quality aspects

dissemination through on-line courses?

 what kind of technical training and assistance

are they giving?

 how are the standards models of quality such as

ISO or EFQM (European Foundation for

Quality Management) used and applied?

 what role can have national agencies or

institutions, as the universities, on the diffusion

of quality culture or the implementation of

quality models for SMEs through both

traditional and web-based learning?

 how organizational and cultural specificities

affect quality implementation?

The importance of quality management is increasing

for the reason that lack of quality control and

assurance systems, lack of accreditation and

certification procedures, poor conformity marks, are

still extremely diffused. Such impediments are

considered as major potential and unnecessary

technical barriers to trade, especially concerning

international competitiveness and globalization. It is

important to underline that European SMEs have to

meet the challenges of globalization and the new

knowledge-driven economy.

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