Gerardo Méndez, quality manager at Geometrica, wrote last week to tell me about the company’s effort to use a wiki to document their new quality management system.

Geometrica designs, manufactures, and installs domes and space frame structures for sports venues, environmental protection, houses of worship, industrial plants, and educational assembly halls. The company is based in Houston, Texas & Monterrey, Mexico, and has delivered domes on every continent (map).

Gerardo included an excellent case study, and gave me permission to reprint it here. I’ve split it into three parts to be published over the next several days. Part 1 looks at how the company decided to use a wiki, Part 2 shows how the wiki was introduced to employees and teams, and Part 3 (below) shows how the wiki helped Geometrica achieve ISO 9001 Certification. The complete case study is also available on Geometrica’s web site. – Stewart

Achieving ISO Certification

The central function of our wiki implementation was the ISO 9001 quality system. Once we shifted the documentation process to the wiki, it took nine months to complete the project. The following areas of ISO 9001 compliance illustrate the great value of the wiki approach:

• 4.2.1. Documentation of the quality system. The wiki allows all documents to be stored in a place where everyone can view and review them.
• 4.2.3. Control of documents. The procedure states that documents are updated when needed, and the wiki sends an email notification to the quality committee and anyone who subscribes whenever a page is updated. The wiki ensures that current revisions are identified because it allows all versions, with date and author, to be stored and shown when needed. The wiki keeps all documents in the point of use and also stores all data in a legible and identifiable way.
• 4.2.4. Records can be easily controlled, stored, retrieved, retained — and there is no need to dispose of them. Typing information directly into the wiki’s pages (or scanning and uploading it) saves space and archives information in such an easy-to-find manner that there’s no point in printing or copying. Even though anyone can access and modify wiki information, records are safe because prior versions are automatically stored for at least six months.
• 5. Management responsibility involves several steps, on which a wiki can help focus:
  • 5.1. a) The wiki allows management to communicate customer, statutory and regulatory requirements throughout the whole organization very quickly. As soon as the manager finishes typing, the wiki sends out email notifications of change to everyone who needs to know. This enhances customer focus, because customer demands are immediately cascaded to the correct organizational levels (5.2).
  • 5.3. d) The wiki communicates policy to the members of the organization, as well as allowing anyone within it to check or change it. Thus the wiki promotes reviews and continuing suitability (point e).
  • 5.4.2. The wiki helps maintain the integrity of the quality management system. In a paper-based system, all documents would have to be revised to ensure that a change in one is reflected in another. The wiki does this job automatically.
  • 5.5.1. The wiki helps ensure that all responsibilities are communicated. Posting an organizational chart in the wiki allows instant access to roles and responsibilities.
  • 5.5.3. In an era of “opened doors”, a wiki is an invaluable tool because it can perform internal communication at its best.
  • 5.6. The wiki simplifies and enhances management review. The standard requires inputs to be presented, outputs to be derived and both to be recorded. Here’s how we accomplish this with a wiki:
    • Prepare the review on the wiki, posting all inputs (and their graphs) in the wiki, as well as the order of the day.
    • During the meeting, take notes and post them beneath the graph pictures in the page described as the “register” for the meeting.
    • Record the number and comments for each corrective action reported.
    • Post a small summary of findings at the end.
    • Scan and post signed attendance sheet.
• 6.2.2. All competence reviews, from employee evaluations to their comparison with needed competences, can be recorded in the wiki and isolated in a page protected by password-access (for confidential information). Employee activities and allotted times can be also maintained in this area. Records of all grades in training classes can be maintained here, which makes planning for follow-up courses very easy.
• 7.3. The wiki helps manage design development planning, inputs, outputs, review, verification and validation, as well as change control. Using the wiki, a team can brainstorm ideas, process information, review output, and present feedback for verification and validation. Now a process that previously might have been reviewed by only one or two people can be reviewed and commented upon by the whole team, with no need to pass papers or send personal emails.
• 7.5.1. The wiki helps control production. Using the wiki, all registers and work instructions can be carried out online, updated easily, and printed (if needed) in the production plant. There are no worries about copies unless it’s a copy being used in the plant. A list of places where documents are posted can allow the owner of a document to eliminate previous revisions and post new ones.
• 8.2.2. The wiki simplifies internal audits. In a wiki you can plan audits, fill in the forms, print them, sign them and scan the document, all in a matter of minutes. The wiki eliminates the need to print a document, write comments on it, clean it up, type it again and print it out again. The wiki also stores signed audits; it’s easy to keep all records in one cyber-place where everyone can access them through their computers.
• 8.5. The wiki promotes continuous improvement, including both corrective and preventive actions. The combination of Bugzilla and wiki allows Geometrica to pinpoint areas for improvement, especially in documents. As a result, improvements take place almost instantaneously, since any mistake caught by a user can be reported and corrected. Any change initiates an immediate email to the person responsible for the document, alerting him or her of the change.

The Consultant’s point of view

Management Systems such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 require documentation, but it has never been their intention to imply uniformity in structure and practices. Organizations are free to decide the content, extent, and detail of their documentation.

Documentation should be considered as a tool, a means to achieve a higher purpose. Many organizations make a common mistake and pay more attention to a document’s format than they do to its content and purpose. They may buy expensive document-control software with a “built in” QMS Manual, including flow diagrams, procedure pages, and work instruction templates — but this type of software tends to have very little flexibility. The software automatically sends e-mails to all involved personnel when a document is changed and often adds bureaucratic barriers such as requests for authorization to publish a new version of the document. Such methods introduce friction and are almost as slow as using hard copies.

This is where a wiki for document control — editing, sharing, recording changes, etc. — is the best solution. Even better, a wiki allows changes to be made in real time, so continual improvement never has had to wait.

Conclusion

The need for this new paradigm is a primal concern. The world is so different from that in which quality systems evolved decades ago. Today we exist as a global village: We rely on cheap transportation and effective supply chains rather than economies of scale. We cross the world in hours and close business deals from China to Chile in seconds. Networks and telecommunications tie it all together. Isn’t it the natural next step to base our quality systems precisely on these technologies?

The bottom line is that a wiki simplifies compliance with ISO 9001 by embracing collaboration and maintaining well organized documentation, the basis of knowledge management. All of the know-how of the organization resides in a media where it is stored, improved, protected from vandalism — and can be used in education and training. With the benefits that wiki technology provides, it is only a matter of time before Quality and Management practitioners change their paradigms to follow this new trend.

Geometrica had its ISO 9001-2008 certification audit in early February, 2009, and obtained its certification through BSI.

Oh, and this article was written on the wiki too.

Image © Copyright 2008 Geometrica.