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The Problem: With How Consultants Implement ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems
ISO 9001 is a business management system that specifies generic controls for the various processes within an organization. Businesses will identify its processes under specific categories such as operational processes, support processes and outsourced processes. Collectively the controls used over these processes will make up their quality management system (QMS). Many ISO 9001 Consultants and organizations implement QMS process controls in a very superficial manner resulting in a system that does not generate any value to the organization and therefore results in little or no benefits to the organization. The main reason they got certification was to satisfy a customer contractual requirement.

ISO 9001, when implemented the right way can produce far more beneficial results. Effective risk management control over each QMS process and the interaction between processes can result in hugh improvements in an organizations productivity and bottom line.

The Solution: How To Go About Implementing A Risk Management Strategy
A process generally has inputs, outputs and value-adding activity. Each of these process characteristics use various resources. These resources include manpower, materials, machinery and equipment, facility and environment, methods, management, etc.. All of these resources are subject to variation and therefore present various degrees of risk in their usage.
An organization must identify the nature and degree of risk and implement appropriate controls over these risks. There are many risk analysis and problem-solving solving tools and software available such as fish-bone analysis and FMEA’s (Failure Mode and Risks Analysis) to perform this risk analysis. Use of such tools is whole new topic best left for a different article..

Listed below are some of the controls an organization should consider for each of the resources used in any QMS process.

Materials
- Inventory management
- Inspections & Tests
- Standards & Specifications
- Supplier Management
- Identification & Traceability
- Turnover & Preservation

Machine
- Capability, capacity and & technology
- Engineering & support
- Inspection, measuring & test equipment
- Tools, dies & fixtures
- Maintenance & supplies
- Equipment layout

Manpower
- Skills, knowledge & experience
- Training
- Responsibility & Authority
- Empowerment, Motivation & Morale
- Adequate staffing
- Health & Safety

Mileu/Environment
- Building & facilities
- Environment controls
- HVAC and other utilities
- Housekeeping, health & safety
- Lighting, air quality & noise
- Contingency/emergency measures

Methods
- Systems & Procedures
- Inspection & Tests
- Quality Plans & Checklists
- Work Instructions
- Bill of manufacture/assembly
- Technology/automation/robotics
- operational and administrative software
- Process flowcharts
- FMEA’s & process controls
- Drawings & blueprints

Measurement
- Objectives/tracking/review/improvement
- Standards/codes/regulations
- Specifications/tolerances/criteria/tolerances
- Operational data/statistics/SPC
- Efficiency & effectiveness
- Customer Satisfaction
- Bench-marking

Management
- Leadership & Planning
- Policies & Objectives
- Commitment & involvement
- Organization & resources
- Follow-up & review
- Communication

How To Use These QMS Process Variable

- Determine which of these resources variables apply to each process identified in your QMS.

- Review the list of controls above and determine what combination of controls would best apply to each specific risk.

- Implement the controls you have identified and verify their effectiveness.

- Consider using a business management consultant to perform these steps.

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Consultancy is all about using the knowledge, expertise and experience to guide others to achieve their goals. Management consulting is about guiding the management of an organization on the current and future problems and opportunities related to its structural and functional aspects. From the routine processes to strategic decisions, consultancy has wide area of operations.

Some Of The Key Functional Areas That It Deals With Are:

a)Managing The Change: Business environments are dynamic, based on a number of internal and external factors. Any change in these environments affects the business requiring corrections at lower, middle and/or top level. Managing the change is about its quick anticipation and developing the capabilities of organization to accept the change. It prevents the losses and the element of risk that the change may bring.
b)Business Transformation Outsourcing (BTO): Professional organizations know what their core competencies are. With increasing wave of globalization, many corporations felt the need to focus only on their core competencies and outsource their other activities. Thereby, they reduced the costs and became more competitive. Consulting identifies what shall be outsourced, to which location and how can this be beneficial for organization.
c)Human Resource: It encompasses the domain of usual activities like recruitment, staffing, compensation and benefits, health and safety, social welfare, labor relations, compliance with the labor laws of the land, etc and also concerning the growth and development of the employees.
d)Executive Coaching: It is important for the executives at all levels to be educated and trained in new processes, technologies and knowledge areas to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. The consultancy can help in designing the suitable on-going and need-based ad-hoc programs for each level.
e)Customer Relationship (CRM): CRM is not just about having an executive at the phone to answer the queries. In reality, there is a need to integrate the marketing plans, sales efforts, manufacturing and/or services with the consumer feedback and queries. Apart from this, the customer needs to have the facility of communicating via multiple media and receiving appropriate solutions as soon as possible. Further, the consulting companies can also outline the suitable PR exercises for different types of customers.
f)Advertising: There are many media of advertising. The online media refers to the internet-based advertising. It is done by way of pay per click (PPC), Search engine Optimization (SEO), Email advertisements, etc. There are also offline channels like TV, Radio, Newspapers, Billboards, etc. Not surprisingly, therefore, an organization may not know which channels to use and when to use these for advertising. Management consulting develops effective advertisement plans in accordance with the short and long term objectives of the organization and guides it on the timings to launch these. It can also develop measures to evaluate the efficacy of these programs. 
g)Finance: It is a step ahead of usual accountancy. Consultancy in this field is about interpretation of financial statements, how to raise the debt or equity from appropriate mediums, planning of the investments and covering the losses that may happen due to fluctuations in exchange rates, interest rates, etc.

Management consulting is a magic wand to make a substantial turnaround in an organization.

About Management Consulting

A business that has existing problems must have a way to plan the developmental stages of improvement within that company. Seeking the assistance of a management consultant allows a company to create an improvement for their performance. The need to hire a good consultant can be temporary for projects that do not require a permanent employee. This need can also be for the purpose of using that specialist’s skills when necessary, as well as from the necessity of looking at a company from the outside in as an assessment, and using that advice to create better performance for that company.

A concern with these consulting is the specialist’s ability to transfer methods from one organization who has been able to create an idea of best practices in that industry to another organization. The effectiveness of a specialist in the ability to do this transfer of best practices is up for debate based on the varying needs of one organization to another, but the experience this position creates by the exposure to hundreds of organizations creates a valuable expertise to draw from. Guiding businesses in isolating problems through the use of their own techniques provides a management consultant with the ability to recommend efficient or effective ways of performing tasks for a business.

Management consultants assist their clients with problem-solving in two ways. The first way is as a specialist and expert that handles problems with little interference or input from the client. In this way, specialists are able to analyze problems and create plans of action that are implemented without the client being involved. The second way is as a facilitator, maintaining a focus on how a plan is created and the actual process of finding solutions. This method of those consulting allows the client to be hands on and involved with the solutions process because it requires the client to implement the plan based on the specialist’s advice.

Management consulting is growing in a large way, but because it is tied closely to the conditions in the economy it has shrank in 2001 – 2003. Since 2007, the growth in this industry is on the rise again and the projected global revenues are looking very good. The four main categories of firms for consulting are organizations that are large and diversified, large strategic consulting and management specialists which do not have a specialization in any particular industry, IT consultancies that have more of a boutique structure but offer technologies and services that larger companies offer, and small firms with a boutique structure with a more specialized area of expertise.

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A project timeline is a central component in any good project management strategy. But as many management consultants have learned the hard way, creating and sticking to a timeline is not as easy as it sounds. Depending on the type of consulting engagement, many project elements – from people to technology to operational and market factors — can generate unexpected complications and delays, quickly throwing a project off-track.

Regardless, a project timeline is an important early step in time management planning and a necessary project management tool for educating your client and keeping your project on schedule and on budget. Whatever your consulting project entails, a detailed timeline enables a management consultant to:

• Give your client prompt, accurate status reports regarding what tasks are completed, due or behind schedule;

• Track your progress toward project goals, and determine whether you’re coming out on-target or behind in terms of payment;

• Identify potential setbacks and resolve them before they cause delays;

• Alert your client earlier to any potential delays – before they put the project behind and create liability for you as a management consultant;

• Invoice your client as project milestones are attained; and

• Monitor how long project components actually take, so you can better estimate time required for future projects.

Developing timelines

At first, developing reliable timelines can be a challenge. If you’ve ever started a consulting project with a schedule in hand, only to encounter setbacks that push your project off-schedule, committing to a timeline may feel like an exercise in futility.

But even if your timeline is just a rough estimate, it is still a useful tool for time management planning. It gives your client a visual aid for understanding how the project will flow, and demonstrates that you have a clear vision of the steps that need to happen to achieve specific project milestones. And, it can protect you against management consulting liability by helping you educate your client about the impact of potential project delays that are beyond your control.

To begin, talk to your client to define the major project milestones that must be accomplished during the course of the project. Use these milestones as the building blocks of your project timeline. Then, consider the steps that must take place to get from point A to point B, C, D and so on – and the logical order in which each step must be completed.

Think about what task must be accomplished in order to begin the next. If multiple tasks can be accomplished at the same time, chart them in parallel. If completing one task involves multiple sub-tasks, it may need a small timeline of its own.

When estimating the necessary time to accomplish each step, talk to the people who will be involved, and realistically consider the amount of time each person can commit to the project. Clearly define any project components for which the client’s team members are responsible, and set deadlines for accomplishing those tasks. Involve the stakeholders in setting these dates, and gain their commitment that they can meet the deadlines.

As you continue to employ timelines to track your projects, it will become easier to create future project timelines. Continually tracking your progress against your timelines gives you historical project management data that will help you estimate the time required for future management consulting projects.

Sticking to Timelines

One way to help ensure that you stick to your timeline is to build in a little extra wiggle room. For example, you might decide to develop two timelines: one for your own use, with more optimistic deadlines, and another, with later deadlines that you share with your client. Then, when you hit your own internal deadlines, you actually come out ahead of schedule in the client’s eyes. This project management method helps compensate for less-than-perfect estimates and unexpected events.

Another project management technique is to simply build a little extra buffer time into your schedule – particularly in areas where you suspect that your assumptions and estimations could potentially be off.

If at any point you find yourself falling behind schedule, look at the tasks coming up, and see if there is any way to dedicate time or resources to them early, so that you can make up for lost time later in the project.

Creating a realistic schedule often means that committed delivery dates will land farther out than your client would prefer. However, a practical project timeline demonstrates that you’ve considered everything it will take to get the job done right, and makes it more likely that you’ll accomplish what you’ve committed to.

Stay Flexible

No matter how hard you try to keep a project on track, the fact is, there are situations when you’ll need to adapt your project timeline.

It usually happens when you or other team members run into something you didn’t expect, such as an insurmountable technical glitch, budget cuts, operational restructuring or personnel turnover. It can also happen when client priorities shift mid-stream due to changing marketplace conditions, or when the client realizes that what they’ve asked for represents just a small part of a larger goal.

In these cases, you and all other project stakeholders must be willing alter your expectations and commitments. As the management consultant, consider the impact the changes will have on the time required to accomplish the project’s goals, and adapt your timeline accordingly. Any time you make a change, be sure to promptly inform everyone involved in the project of what has changed, and why.

By creating a realistic project timeline, and tracking progress against it as part of an overall project management strategy, you’re more likely to keep your management consulting project on-time and on-budget. Even if you fall behind, a timeline gives you a convenient and impressive tool for keeping your client informed of progress and the reasons for any delays. And an educated and informed client is more likely to be a loyal client.

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