ISO 9001:2000 certification effort for ITG

May 1, 2004

ITG launched its ISO 9001-2000 certification effort in late March 2004, spearheaded by President Michael Angelakis. Lefteris Karmiris is the project manager and Tina Hong is the technical writer for this effort.

ISO is the globally accepted abbreviation of the International Organization for Standardization, which is used across different languages. The name “ISO” is derived from the Greek word iso, which means “equal.” ISO promotes a Quality Management System, defined as a common sense, documented business management system that can be applied to all business sectors and all sizes of companies. These process-oriented standards focus on managing a quality system and controlling, measuring and improving those processes. They help businesses provide consistently high quality products and services. ITG is pursuing ISO certification for a number of reasons, including increased market share, more efficiently run operations and a higher degree of customer satisfaction.

The following initial actions were recently taken by ITG in its effort to document existing practices, streamline its operations, and achieve ISO certification.

  • The president prepared and disseminated the Company Improvement Mission Statement and Quality Statement. Subsequently, he met with each department separately to explain these documents and to discuss the company goals.
  • Each manager was asked to produce a description of departmental operational processes, a workflow chart of these processes, organizational chart and job description for each staff member. Lefteris and Tina met separately with each department manager to understand better the work of the department and to assist in the preparation of the documents, as needed.
  • ITG established a Document Control System where all company documents will be stored and maintained. Manos Coutoulakis is the Database Administrator of this system. The necessary document control procedure is currently being finalized.
  • Departmental submissions, beginning with flowcharts, are now being reviewed and vetted by a committee chaired by Michael Angelakis, with the responsible department manager present. With the help of John Cambiotis, all workflow charts are being linked together in a master company document.
  • A team consisting of the Director of Sales Bill Fowkes, Quality Assurance Manager Wanda Boykin, Lefteris and Tina has been attending workshops conducted by EDS on certification requirements.
  • A taskforce composed of department representatives is currently being established to support the ISO certification effort.

Future steps and tasks towards ISO certification include: implementation of staff training, conducting Gap Analysis, finalizing organization structure and responsibilities, accumulating, reviewing and vetting all forms in line with agreed coding procedure, correlating all forms to flowcharts, finalizing flowcharts, and producing a Quality Manual.

As we are currently streamlining our procedures, it is critical not only to present and document them properly, but also to ensure that any beneficial improvements are taken into consideration. To this end, any suggestions are welcome to be discussed with the ISO team.