A TEAM-ORIENTED CYBERNETIC APPROACH FOR VALUE-ADDED QUALITY AUDITING

ABSTRACT

Successful implementation of TQM (Total Quality Management) in an organization requires “system approach.” ISO 9000 standard provides such a systematic approach. The ISO 9000 certification process is a cybernetic system where the feedback part is “quality auditing.” An effective auditing can therefore improve and accelerate the certification process. Value-added quality auditing is an effective auditing technique in which auditors not only evaluate quality a management system and processes in terms of compliance to a standard, but also they analyze their effectiveness. A value-added quality auditing approach is emerging as one of the most powerful tools for continuous quality improvement, especially after the introduction of the ISO 9001:2000 standard that requires effectiveness, process auditing, proper auditor skills, and team-based audits. In order to meet these requirements, formation of an appropriate quality audit team is essential. This article presents a team-oriented cybernetic model for the value-added quality auditing along with the procedure developed for the “quality-audit team formation.” The proposed model makes use of feedbacks to add value to the audited business where appropriate.

The authors would like to thank anonymous referees for their constructive comments.