Volume 6 · Issue 7 · July 2001

Contents

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Stepping Up to ISO 9004:2000: Focusing on the Customer

In this second entry in a series on stepping up to ISO 9004:2000 to go beyond a baseline ISO 9001:2000 QMS and pursue total quality management, Russ Westcott, President of R.T. Westcott & Associates, Old Saybrook, CT, begins to address issues surrounding how to place an organization’s focus on the customer. Examples of activities used to establish a customer-oriented organization, contained in Clause 4.1, of ISO 9004, are explored in this article, to include: defining and promoting processes that lead to improved organizational performance, acquiring and using process data and information on a continuing basis, directing progress towards continual improvement and using suitable methods to evaluate process improvement, such as self-assessments and management review.