Value-Added Quality System Certification - as a By-Product of Your Success

(e.g., ISO 9001, ISO/TS 16949, AS 9100, TL 9000...)

Our primary focus is supporting and enabling the growth and development of your business - and (if desired) achieving certification as a by-product of your improved performance.

The typical approach you will hear from others includes "do a gap analysis, train your people in the standard, write procedures according to the structure of the standards, try to get everyone to do what you wrote...and scramble to fix everything that you're "not doing" before the auditor comes." [OK, the last part they won't tell you...]. This approach adds bureaucracy and cost to your business. See Why.

Click Here to download a white paper on Next Level Performance + Painless ISO 9000.

Five Advantages to You of the 4aBetterBusiness Approach

1. Focused on Increasing the Success of Your Business

We develop with you the employee buy-in, streamlined processes and superior execution that enable you to achieve breakthrough and ongoing improvement (and certification as a by-product) in a time frame not previously thought possible.

We took one company from a failed prior implementation of ISO 9000 (by others), which people didn't understand, to a successful ISO implementation with employee buy-in, a state-level Baldrige award, and acceptance of a proposal to a customer that literally tripled their business.

2. Achieve Management and Employee Understanding & Buy-in

Management and employee understanding and buy-in is built into the process from the start. Our approach develops:

• experience achieving improvement with the natural processes of your business
• visible improvements in operating and financial results - and meeting quality system standards as a by-product of your success
• enthusiasm for participation and results

According to our clients: Priceless

It's common to have people stop by on their breaks, or almost-literally "tackle" us as we walk through the facility, to talk about additional "Sand in the Gears" they see and want to help remove.

3. Rapidly Eliminate the "Sand in the Gears", and Accelerate Ongoing Improvement

80-90% of the "Sand in the Gears" is embedded in your system - the way your people, processes and technology work together. With our implementation-driven process, you directly address these "80-90% issues”. You will rapidly eliminate "Sand in the Gears" and improve your ability to achieve cost, quality and delivery targets. You get short payback and ongoing multiple returns on your investment.

What does "Sand in the Gears" look like in your organization? "Solving" the same problems over and over? Fire-fighting / Band-aid solutions / Reactive? Lots of documentation, not understood, not followed, not effective? Information and organization "silos" - lack of communication and coordination? "Change" is hard to implement - "ripples through" organization, doesn't stick? Lots of data, but little information to guide decision-making? Improvement initiatives don't produce (sufficient) improvement?

4. Have an Easy-to-Use Visual System (Process Maps), Minimize Update Time and Effort

Working with the natural processes of your business (instead of “canned” systems or working “backwards from the standard”) keeps activities linked in a way that makes sense for your business. Easy-to-understand, easy-to-use visual system simplifies changes and updates.

One of our clients, starting from scratch, achieved ISO/TS 16949 Certification in 4 months and was the subject of a case study by the major industry association. For another organization, we eliminated literally thousands of pages of outdated, fragmented documentation that people did not understand or necessarily follow, and replaced them with visual process documentation which people understood, followed and in which they had developed ownership.

5. Assurance of Achieving Certification

Our clients have achieved 100% first-attempt certification. Your system is based on your natural processes, in the language of your business, meets the objectives of quality system standards (e.g., ISO 9001, ISO/TS 16949, AS 9100, TL 9000) in a way that makes sense for your business – and builds momentum for ongoing improvement.

For more than 25 years, we've helped organizations "Eliminate the Sand in the Gears" and improve performance through use of process-based systems - the key element of ISO 9001(2000), on which many other standards are based. This puts us high on the learning curve about process-based systems, and and about transferring that expertise to your organization.
Click Here to download a FREE paper on Next Level Performance + Painless ISO 9000.