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ABSTRACT Indian industries have gone for ISO certification in a big way since the beginning of 1990. This independent survey was undertaken to assimilate the experiences of the companies gathered in the path of certification, its impact on their business, opinion about the auditing firms and hurdles faced in the path of certification. This survey is the largest and most wide-ranging of its kind to be conducted in this country. It covers well over 1200 ISO 9000-certified organizations of all sizes and industry sectors and registered by different certification bodies. Analysis of the survey data revealed that ISO 9000 implementation has benefited in: better understanding of process! activities being performed; better understanding of responsibilities/authorities; and linkage across the organization. In this article, we discuss the findings of the survey and also suggest a few counter measures for improving the effectiveness.
Introduction
Indian industries have gone for ISO certification in a big way since the beginning of 1990. Several hundreds of organizations have secured certification and today several hundreds more are aiming to obtain the ISO certificate, but there is a feeling that the original objective, namely improvement in product and service quality, is not being realized. During these years, a multitude of auditing agencies have entered the scene, with differences in auditing style, scope and the criteria for certification.
Against this background this survey was thought of to assimilate the experiences of the companies and their opinions about the auditing firms, hurdles faced in the path of certification, benefits of certification, etc. Accordingly, this survey was planned and conducted. We present the findings of the survey here.
Methodology
In this survey the emphasis has been on the gathering of information from as many companies as possible, not finding the information on a sampling basis. So the usual methods of estimation and sampling errors are not used.
A questionnaire was designed covering the following broad aspects:
profile of the company surveyed;
role of top management;
reasons for going for ISO 9000 certification;
benefits of the certification;
lessons learnt;
future direction;
satisfaction level with the auditing agencies;
general comments, observations from the implementers of the ISO 9000 standard.
Conduct of the survey
The list of certified companies was obtained from the auditing firms operating in...