Managing Quality

Lewis Yasenchak has more than 35 years of experience in sales, operations, product development and quality management in the plastics industry, and is the founder/owner of P&Y Management Resources, a company specializing in building and improving the industry’s supply chain. It has been 15 years since I’ve worked with Lewis on covering quality management issues within the plastics industry for our niche audience, but when I got wind that the ISO 9001:2015 revision from 2008 was in place, I knew he would be my go-to guy for educating MMT’s audience on what this revision means and on how to establish a practical, step-by-step roadmap to ISO success.

According to Lewis, ISO 9001:2015 will be a major force for improvement and process excellence—if it is used as a means to guide users toward better quality practices within their organizations. He believes the broadening of the standard’s scope, in language and intent, bodes well for those shops that will recertify or gain certification for the first time.

He explained that the ISO standard’s structure has changed and now encapsulates 10 general clauses: scope, normative references, terms and definitions, context of the organization, leadership, planning, support, operation, performance evaluation and improvement. Beginning in January, Lewis will break down each of these 10 clauses in a new monthly column called Keeping Up with ISO. Coverage will include the following: 
• How to move from ISO 9001:2008 to ISO 9001:2015 by comparing the new and old versions of the standards for the plastics industry and reviewing key changes. 
• Why and how to adopt ISO management system standards by taking a look at the success stories of several moldmakers and molders. 
• How to implement ISO systems for moldmakers and molders by examining guidelines for realizing financial and economic benefits.
• How to provide business assurance for moldmakers and molders by sharing auditing strategies. 
• How to improve the plastics industry workforce by offering ways to build a cross-functional team for the ISO effort.

If you have specific questions or areas of interest related to ISO, share them with me, and I’ll work with Lewis to address them in upcoming articles. Turn to page 10 to learn why keeping up with ISO standards demands top-down attention.