(Seen in ‘agileprojectmanagement’ post by "Bob Corrick" <bobcorrick@hotmail.com>…)

www.lean-service.com/6-news-11.asp#2

 "Toyota Japan rejects ISO 9000"
 "My thanks to Takaji Nishizawa, a leading industrial consultant in
 Japan, for this item:

 >>
 "The following was reported in Nikkei Business. Nikkei Business is
 published weekly and one of the most popular business journals in
 Japan.

 "In October of 1999 it featured a three-week series about ISO 9000
 problems in Japan. In the articles it said that Toyota decided not to
 get ISO9000 because it saw no value in terms of quality and thus saw
 no need to register.

 "The decision had been made after the Shimoyama factory, which is an
 engine plant, had registered to ISO9001. When introducing new things,
 Toyota's philosophy is to test actually before installation rather
 than discuss on the desk. The Shimoyama factory had been selected as
 a test plant.

 "And after the test, Toyota concluded there was no value in ISO9000
 registration."

 There was a newspaper reporter in Philadelphia (over 10 years ago) who
 reported the observation that a company that manufactures concrete life
 preservers could maintain their ISO-9000 certification so long as they
 followed a documented process for notifying the next of kin.

Ron Jeffries posted:

 My limited experience is that many companies who go ISO do so for
 one or both of these two reasons:

 1. They are a supplier to a company that requires it;
 2. They believe it will improve their ability to market their
 products or services.

 I am sure there are companies that go ISO in order to improve, but
 I've not personally encountered one. (I did once encounter a company
 whose CEO had promised the board to get to CMM 2 by some date, IIRC
 as a response to low quality from his software teams.)