Setting up your ISO system
To guide your scrap recycling firm to successful ISO certification, your Kantner & Company consultant takes you through the eleven phases charted here. For details, scroll down, or click on the boxes.
Project Planning
System Survey
This phase is an information gathering step essential to preparing the implementation plan that most efficiently fits your firm and its objectives. We spend a day at your site, observing operations, interviewing key managers, and assessing the extent to which you processes already meet the requirements of the relevant Standard(s). Believe it or not, most scrap recyclers already meet upward of 60-70% of the requirements.
We develop a list of areas in which your processes may not fully comply with the requirements. We also develop a detailed implementation plan that takes into account your objectives and the level of resources available to assist the consultant. (The more work you're able to do, the less the process will cost.)
The implementation includes a schedule and estimate of costs. At that point it's up to you to decide whether or not to go forward.
Project plan
This is the blueprint for the development and implementation of your management system. It spells out in some detail the steps to be taken, the persons responsible (Kantner & Company or client personnel), and milestones. This is in your hands for your review and approval before you make any commitment whatsoever.
It's said that "in war, the first casualty is the plan." There's no question that unforeseen circumstances will cause the plan to be adjusted as it moves along. In our 200-some implementations, we've seen it all! But thanks to Kantner & Company's commitment to clear, open, and consistent client communication, you always know exactly where things stand as compared with the plan. It's the yardstick against which progress is measured.
Document processes
Core tasks
Task instructions (often called "work instructions") apply to your yard's operational level. They are process-based, machine-based, or both. For example, if you do baling, shearing, and/or shredding, you'll have a task instruction pertaining to each of these. You may also have task instructions for other yard level processes such as torching, sorting, etc.
The task instructions include the information essential to whatever dimension(s) your system covers. If it's a quality system only (9001), the instructions will spell out the steps required to process material and make sure it meets specification. If your system includes environmental and/or safety, instructions critical to those dimensions are included also.
Task instructions give personnel just the mandatory instructions -- the things people need to follow to assure that quality, environmental, and/or safety rules are followed. This information comes partly from your own yard people, partly from your supervision / management, and partly from our own experience working in 35+ scrap recyling locations since 1993.
Once written and approved, task instructions are available for existing operators to refer to (if that's needed, which is very seldom). More important, they're used as aids to training new people in the "best practices" that you have defined.
Core processes
Control processes are written procedures -- sometimes called "standard operating procedures".
- For quality systems (9001), these define the best practices for meeting your consumer needs. Because these pertain directly to your consumer-affecting processes, they are often called "consumer oriented processes." (More information on those just below.)
- For environmental systems (14001), you'll have control processes for determining legal / statutory requirements, internal / external communication, and identifying environmental interactions and impacts.
- For safety systems (18001), you'll have control processes for determining legal / statutory requirements, internal / external communication, and identifying safety hazards and risks.
For quality systems (9001), control process examples include processes for buying scrap (retail, industrial, etc.), preparing it, verifying that it meets specification, inventorying it, developing consumer sales contracts, and delivering material. Where relevant, you'll also define and document your processes for brokering scrap (i.e. delivering direct from generator to consumer without preparation or inspection), and for toll work (i.e. processing and returning consumer-owned material).
Working with your key people, we develop and document control processes to match as closely as possible the way your system(s) already work. The only mandatory changes would arise from the ISO requirements themselves, and in those cases we are very adept at furnishing you with an array of options.
Other support processes
Support processes are also written procedures -- sometimes called "standard operating procedures". These are processes that are not directly relevant to your processes for buying, preparing, and selling scrap. They are, however, required by the various Standards.
The good news is that these "support processes" are pretty much the same across the three dimensions (quality, environmental, safety). Examples include:
- Control of system documents
- Control of records
- Internal audit
- Process measurement / monitoring
- Maintenance and calibration
- Corrective and preventive action
It's possible -- even likely -- that your organization does not have some of these processes today. But, having developed systems in so many scrap recycling sites, Kantner & Company consultants bring a wealth of experience to the table at helping you develop processes that are clean, simple, nonredundant, and value-added.
Implement system
Policies and objectives
The Standard(s) governing the system you are implementing require that you develop a written "policy statement" that sets forth your organization's policy and commitment to excellence in whatever dimension(s) your system covers:
- Quality (ISO 9001)
- Environmental (ISO 14001)
- Safety (OHSAS 18001)
The key thing is, every employee in your organization needs to know and be able to relate, in his/her own words, the policy statement. We know how to help you make this happen.
It's also necessary to establish measurable objectives for your system. This is the phase where we do that, after running your measurement practices (defined in the Support Processes step) for a while.
Publish documentation
Once your initial set of system documents is ready, it's time to make them readily and reasonably available to the employees they affect. Not every employee needs immediate access to every document all the time.
The optimal solution here is electronic distribution. This is not always practical. We help our clients set up document distribution processes that minimize bureaucracy and expense, yet meet the requirements of the Standard(s) and pass audits.
Provide training and orientation
One secret to effective implementation - and to passing audits - is to set up your management system (quality, environmental, and/or safety) so that it follows, as closely as possible, the way things already work at your company. This leverages your company's years of hard won experience, and makes it easier for people to get used to the new management system.
Still, because of the requirements of the Standard(s), some changes in your company's practices will be necessary. At this phase employees are oriented in the management system (including learning what we call the 5 Key Facts that everyone has to know). And they receive training in their new obligations under the system.
The optimal thing is for this training to be provided by your company's own management and supervision, with the aid of your Kantner & Company consultant.
And it's not a one-time shot. The best mode of training of this type is brief training conducted frequently.
Verify system and get registered ("certified")
Internal audit
Internal audit is probably the most powerful tool in your management system. Your trained auditors - regular employees - audit your processes on a scheduled basis, to verify that your system continues to work the way you want it to, and to find opportunities for improvement.
We train your audit team to be thorough, diligent, and nonconfrontational. Audit results are evidence-based, which means you can count on their conclusions. The audit process is a back-door teaching/training process. And it helps your company management to be prepared for external audits from consumers, DNR, OSHA, etc. As such, internal audit functions as your "early warning system."
Your system must undergo one complete cycle of internal audits before your registration audit.
Analyze and improve
This period, between the start of internal audit and your registration audit, we call "crunch time" because a lot happens all at once with your system. And things get hectic.
But now your system is starting to come to life, with - assuming your system is well implemented - all employees involved. And information is flowing in. Your problem-solving activities are underway, and your measurement and monitoring systems are providing results to act upon. And your internal audit process is pointing out system and process issues also.
With "management review" and other top level activities, you resolve quality, environmental, and/or safety problems, and adjustments to your system where needed. The idea here is to evolve to a philosophy of prevention rather than detection -- and to correct problems once and for all, rather than expending resources in never-ending, and frustrating, fire-fighting.
This phase is a long-term one. In the short term, the task is to be sure that the management system fits well, is compliant with the Standard, and sufficiently understood by all concerned. Then it's on to registration.
Registration
Some 75 "registration" (or "certification" - the terms are virtually interchangeable) companies operate in North America today. Some great, many decent, many more mediocre, and a few downright awful.
Your Kantner & Company consulting team guides you through a process of selecting the right registration company for your firm. Since we are independent, and have in depth experience with dozens of registrars, we are well equipped to be your objective and experienced guides - but ultimately you make the decision. This usually takes a couple of months, and we work on this while finishing the auditing / correction and improvement phase.
We help prepare your management, supervision, and line operators with all the information needed to undergo a successful registration audit. Of course it's stressful, but when we say you're ready, you're ready.
And you'll do fine.
