The ISO 9001 & ISO 14001 Standards and the environment

The ISO 9001 & ISO 14001 Standards and the environment

The ISO 14000 family of International Standards on environmental management is a relative newcomer to ISO’s portfolio – but enviroment-related standardization is far from being a new departure for ISO.

In fact, ISO has two-pronged approach to meeting the needs of business, industry, governments, non-governmental organizations and consumers in the field of the environment.

On the one hand, it offers a wideranging portfolio of standardized sampling, testing and analytical methods to deal with specific environmental challenges. It has developed more than 350 International Standards (out of a total more
than 12000) for the monitoring of such aspects as the quality of air, water and soil. These standards are means of providing business and government with scientifically valid data on the environmental effects of economic activity.

They also serve in a number of countries as the technical basis for environmental regulations.

ISO is leading a strategic approach by developing environmental management system standards that can be implemented in any type of organization in either public or private sectors (companies, administration, public utilities). To spearhead this strategic approach, ISO establish a new technical commitee, ISO /TC 207, Environmental management, in

1993. This followed ISO’s successful pioneering experience in management system standardization with the ISO 9000 series for quality management.

ISO’s direct involvement in environmental management stemmed from an intensive consultation process, carried out within the framework of a Strategic Advisory Group on Environment (SAGE),set up in 1991, in which 20 countrie, 11 international organizations and more than 100 environmental experts participated in defining the basic requirements of a new approach to environment-related standards.

This pioneering work was consolidated with ISO’s commitment to support the objective of “sustainable development” dicussed at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

Today, delegations of business and government experts from 55 countries have participate actively within TC 207,

and another 16 countries have observer status. These delegations are chosen by the national standars institute concerned and they are required to bring to TC 207 a national consensus on issue being addressed by the commitee.

This national consensus is derived from a process of consultation with interested parties.

From its beginning, it was recognized that ISO/TC 207 should have close cooperation with ISO/TC 176, Quality management and quality assurance, in the areas of management systems, auditing and related terminology. Active efforts are under way to ensure compatibility of ISO environmental management and quality management standards, for the benefit of all organizations wishing to implement them.

Elements Of ISO 14001 Environmental Management System

Elements Of ISO 14001 Environmental Management System

ISO/DIS 14001 is one of a series of emerging international environmental management standardsaimed at promoting
continual improvement in company environmental performance through the adoption and implementation of an environmental management system. The (draft) standard specifies the core elements of an EMS, but contains only those elements that may be objectively audited for certification or self-declaration purposes. A companion guidance standard, ISO/DIS 14004 includes examples, descrïptions and options that aid in the implementation of an EMS and in integrating the EMS into overall management practices. It is not intended for use by certification/registration bodies.

ISO/DIS 14001 defines an overall environmental management system , closely modeled on the ISO 9000 quality systems standard , and covers the following key elements:

· Establishment of an appropriate environmental policy that is documented and communicated to employees and made available to the public, and which includes a commitment to continual improvement and pollution prevention, regulatory compliance and a framework for setting objectives;
· A planning phase that covers the identification of the environmental aspects of the organization’s activities, identification and access to legal requirements, establishment and documentation of objectives and targets consistent with the policy, and establishment of a program for achieving said targets and objectives (including the designation of responsible individuals, necessary means and timeframes);
· Implementation and operation of the EMS including the definition, documentation and communication of roles and responsibilities, provision of appropriate training, assurance of adequate internal and external communication, written management system documentation as well as appropriate document control procedures, documented procedures for operational controls, and documented and communicated emergency response procedures;
· Checking and corrective action procedures, including procedures for regular monitoring and measurement of key characteristics of the operations and activities, procedures for dealing with situations of non-conformity, specific record maintenance procedures and procedures for auditing the performance of the EMS;
· Periodic management reviews of the overall EMS to ensure its suitability, adequacy and effectiveness in light of changing circumstances.

The EMS as outlined in ISO 14001 provides a structured process for the achievement of continual improvement, the rate and extent of which is determined by the organization in light of economic and other circumstances. Although some improvement in environmental performance can be expected due to the adoption of a systematic approach, it should be understood that the EMS is a tool which enables the organization to achieve and systematically control the level of environmental performance that it sets itself. The establishment of an EMS will not, in itself, necessarily result in an immediate reduction of adverse environmental impact. Indeed, care needs to be taken that the mere establishment of an EMS does not lull the organization into a false sense of security. But effectively used, an EMS should enable an organization to improve its environmental performance and avoid or reduce adverse environmental impacts over time.

Why is Six Sigma Fascinating in ISO 9000?

Why is Six Sigma Fascinating in ISO 9001 Standards?

Six Sigma has become very popular throughout the whole world. There are several reasons for this popularity. First, it is regarded as a fresh quality management strategy which can replace TQC, TQM and others.

Many companies, which were not quite successful in implementing previous management strategies such as TQC and TQM, are eager to introduce Six Sigma.

Development process of Six Sigma in quality management

Six Sigma is viewed as a systematic, scientific, statistical and smarter (4S) approach for management innovation which is quite suitable for use in a knowledge-based information society.

Second, Six Sigma provides efficient manpower cultivation and utilization. It employs a “belt system” in which the levels of mastery are classified as green belt, black belt, master black belt and champion. As a person in a company obtains certain

training, he acquires a belt. Usually, a black belt is the leader of a project team and several green belts work together for the project team.

Third, there are many success stories of Six Sigma application in well known world-class companies. As mentioned earlier, Six Sigma was pioneered by Motorola and launched as a strategic initiative in 1987. Since then, and particularly from 1995, an exponentially growing number of prestigious global firms have launched a Six Sigma program. It has been noted that many globally leading companies run Six Sigma programs (see Figure 3), and it has been well known that Motorola, GE, Allied Signal, IBM, DEC, Texas Instruments, Sony, Kodak, Nokia, and Philips Electronics among others have been quite successful in Six Sigma. In Korea, the Samsung, LG, Hyundai groups and Korea Heavy Industries & Construction Company have been quite successful with Six Sigma.

Lastly, Six Sigma provides flexibility in the new millennium of 3Cs, which are:

• Change: Changing society

• Customer: Power is shifted to customer and customer demand is high

• Competition: Competition in quality and productivity

The pace of change during the last decade has been unprecedented, and the speed of change in this new millennium is perhaps faster than ever before. Most notably, the power has shifted from producer to customer. The producer-oriented industrial society is over, and the customer-oriented information society has arrived. The customer has all the rights to order, select and buy goods and services. Especially, in e-business, the customer has all-mighty power.

Six Sigma with its 4S (systematic, scientific, statistical and smarter) approaches provides flexibility in managing a business unit.

The Path to ERP for Small Businesses

When looking for business software, small companies might fall into the trap of being selected instead of selecting vendors. This usually happens because small companies do not allocate extensive time and resources to the process and do not have selection methodologies, which help decision makers select a product without further investigation.

Not every company takes advantage of a sound software selection methodology. The good news is that other companies have been through complex selection projects before, built sophisticated tools, and developed processes to make it solid, speedy, and successful. This article will broadly review the phases involved in a well-organized software selection methodology. Adhering to a sound methodology helps ensure that you select the right software rather than risk wasting money on all the problems that can arise down the road from a selection, which fails to meet the needs of your organization.

No matter which methodology you use, the process has three main phases: A) research, B) evaluation, and C) selection.

You know what your main activities are; therefore you should have a pretty good idea which processes the best ERP system for your organization should support. But, since there are several ways to do the same thing (e.g., picking and shipping), do you know which way is easier and more efficient for your organization? Remember, just because a process or workflow works well, it does not mean it’s the best way to do it. You should always find ways to improve a process or workflow.

To make sure you find the best ERP system for you company, you must first understand what processes are the most appropriate for your organization. Appropriate, in this case, means suitable for your industry, but also efficient for your company (sometimes processes are defined along the way by people who try to make their life easier, not always including the others) Defining workflows for the major activities of your company will help you better define what you should expect an ERP solution to do for your organization.

At the end of the research stage, you should have a pretty good idea of your company’s software requirements and also have a comprehensive list of sources of information where you can find what you need for the next stage—comparable vendors and products best suited for your organization.

E-Soft ERP System

The E-Soft Realtime ERP Solutions will be targeted to the SMI, with much emphasis given to simplification and easy of use. Thus, the degree of customisation would be higher, means more flexibility to users. The E-soft Software team are specialized in the ERP System because all the team members are having manufacturing background & ISO 9000 system implementation experience. Most of the team members have at least 5 to 10 years working experience in manufacturing environment. Therefore, the implementation of ERP System will be much more realistic and easier. The E-Soft ERP System will also compliance with the ISO9000 standard. Our strong point is our experience & specialization in manufacturing. In fact, besides having working experience in the manufacturing sector, setting up of MRP system to various kind of industries for our clients also provide us the hand on experience in the implementation. Our MRP clients are consist of wide variety of industries from the plastic moulding, plywood, sawn timber, speaker, speaker box, stamping industries, packaging, bonded warehouse, voice coil, cone paper, air-condition, industrial hose to KD Plant. These does not include non-industries business such MLM, pawnshop, workshop and others application. Therefore, we are not only selling the software but value added in consultation and advisory. Since the working flow and management needs to work hand in hand with the application software, therefore in the process of implementation, we will play a role of consultant and advisor in preparing the working procedure and work flow.

We always tried to achieve realtime data collection ever since our implementation of ERP system. Just try to imagine if a finished products have manufactured in production line, going through QC inspection, transfer to store, issue to shipping area, going through QA inspection and finally loading to container, it have come across so many people’s hand. Human error in filling up documents, error in key in entry, missing of documents will happen. Thus, by implementing realtime ERP Solution, all products will be scanned either by barcode, Link machine to PLC to capture production quantity or detect through RfiD tags, the result will input directly to the system. Although, the initial cost by implement the realtime data collection are high, but it’s worth investing because it will eliminate human error and the data are always real time. However, not all industries are suitable to go realtime. It depends from one industry to another.

The E-Soft ERP Modules are consists of:

1. System Manager.

This module shall cover the master files maintenance such as Customer Files, Supplier Files, Item Master Files, Bill Of Material, Price Files Maintenance, Machine Files Maintenance and etc. The setting of user’s rights will be defined in this module, specific in detail for add new record, edit, delete, enquiry as well as printing reports.

System Manager also cover the utilities features which will provide supports and maintenance to the ERP system, for instance Backup Function, Restore Function, special tools such as change code no and so on.

2. Distributions. (Sales Order Processing & Shipping Control System)

The Distributions module covers the Sales Order Processing, Shipping Control System and Customs Control System.

Upon receipt of sales order from customer, the sales order shall be keyed into the Sales Order System, so as to generate a New Order Listing. The necessary information of the sales order shall be captured into

the system such as P/O Number, Customer, P/O Date, Delivery Place, Item code, quantity, unit price, expected delivery date and so on.

Shipping Control System shall maintain the shipping records for the goods sent out to customer. The system shall link to the Sales Order Processing to deduct the order quantity. The system will print the necessary shipping documents such as Delivery Order, Invoice, Packing List, GPB 1, Customs 9, Customs 1 and etc.

3. Warehouse (Material , WIP & Finished Goods Stock Control)

This module covers the stock control of raw material, work in progress (WIP) and also finished product.

This module will monitor the stock movement of the stock throughout the company in various forms either in the form of raw material, wip or finished product. The incoming module shall register any form of incoming input to the stock either from supplier, production and etc. On the other hand, the outgoing module shall records all type of outgoing transaction, either issuing to production floor, shipping to customer, return to supplier and so on.

Stock taking module was provided to enable users to carry out stack taking process. It covers the printing of inventory tag, updating of stock take figure, generate stock variance report, reset opening figure and etc.

Other features such as enquiry on stock balance, transaction, common part, part shortage and obsolete part are also available. It can be viewed on screen or printed out in report format.

In order to achieve real time stock control system, barcode or other technology such as RFiD can be deployed in the warehouse module.

4. Production Planning

This module consists of 2 main areas, namely:

Production Capacity Planning.

Production Scheduling.

Production capacity planning involved the process of calculating the production capacity on a specific period based on machine available against order received.

On the other hand, production scheduling shall allowed users to process the production scheduling, so as to obtain a optimum production schedule.

With production planning module, users can easily maintain customer satisfaction while ensuring conformance to plans and profitability across the enterprise

5. Procurement.

The Procurement Module handles the creating, printing and follows up of purchase orders. The purchase orders may apply to inventoried or non inventoried materials. Also maintained is purchase history and price history.

The purchase order tracking function will enable purchaser to track the purchased materials based on the required date. Upon receipt of material, the purchase order balance shall be updated accordingly.

6. Material Requirement Planning.

The Material Requirement Planning process is designed to make the production schedule replenishment quantities, explode through the bill of materials to create material requirement based on production schedule

7. Quality Control System.

The Quality Control System shall consist of:

IQC (Incoming QC) – all incoming materials shall go through this IQC inspection in order to ensure all materials received are in good order and condition.

On Line QC – This module will capture all On Line QC which is carried out on each product produced by production floor. Production rejects shall be obtained from the production floor and update into the system, in order to analyse the rejection causes.

QA (Quality Assurance) – to enable the sampling check on the outgoing product before delivery to customer. AQL level shall be determined by the management for the sampling size taken.

8. Mould History Control System.

The ability to maintain the history of every mould by calculating the numbers of shots for each mould based on production output.

9. Subcont. Control System.

This module will control the out flow and in flow of semi finished product send to subcontractor for subcont process. The system will be able to show the stock level stored in subcontractor’s site.

10. Audit Trial

This module shall capture all the audit trial of the activities carried out. All new entry, changes, deletion of data can be traced by date, time & users.

E-Soft Check Printing Software

E-Soft Check Printing Software / Check Writing Software enables corporate or personal to print check in ease. System allow user to define multiple check layout format, and flexibility to print in any printers including dot-matrix, ink jet or laser jet. User friendly built in printing layout editor enable user to define as many as format required. System will automatically converts numbers to words.

E-Soft Check Printing Software / Check Writing Software not only used to print check, but also maintaining the check issuing records, including post dated check details. Information maintained are Transaction Date, Check Number, Issuing Bank, Check Date, Check Amount, Payee & Check Details which allow user to key in the payment details or others necessary remark. System allow user to edit, delete or void the check.

The Manual writing of check can be a tedious task typically when involves writing payee’s name, amount, data and currency description which should be error-free. Checks with errors will increase the expenses of the company.

With E-Soft Check Printing Software / Check Writing Software, preparing a check becomes very easy and interesting! All you have to do is to key-in the first payee character and the system will auto search the payee name from database. Than Key-in the check amount that you intend to pay, the words amount will be auto converted. With pre-defined alignment of words, the words can be printed in order on the check with your existing printer. Thus it gives your Company a good impression and manageable check handling.

With E-Soft Check Printing Software / Check Writing Software, spelling mistakes and differences in amount and amount in words that will result in check being returned can be eliminated. The payee’s name that was printed before is automatically stored and the name can be retrieve with just a few initial keys. This will eventually reduce the administrative cost incurred for returned checks!

E-Soft Check Printing Software / Check Writing Software provide user with a fast & user friendly interface to make the check preparation simple & easy.

E-Soft Check Printing Software / Check Writing Software print in any printers, including Laser Printer, Inkjet Printer and Dot Matrix Printer. No special check printer required.

E-Soft Check Printing Software / Check Writing Software supported Microsoft Windows platforms (Window Vista, Window XP, Window 2000, Window 7)