What Are We Aiming For? How Do We Get It?

Quality. Assured Quality. Quality at the level that is promised. Quality at the level that the customer expects.

So, a Quality Assurance Program? …or a Quality Control System? …or Quality Management that includes everyone?

Good idea. How do we get that?

What is an ISO?

In another lesson we might go deep into the role of the ISO. Today, just a little background.

The is an international organization, an International Standards Organisation. It works with other groups around the world, gathering and refining and distributing standards.

There are standards and organizations that deal with many topics.

For example, the group responsible for electrical standards in the United States will meet with the group responsible for electrical standards in France and China and other places. They will discuss how they can make things more safe for everyone around the world. They will discuss common issues and solutions. And, very importantly, they will discuss how to communicate what is critical in one territory to those in another territory. That way, if people follow the correct standards, items can be manufactured any place in the world and used safely in other parts of the world.

One of the topics that the ISO discusses is cinema equipment standards, and cinema processes. These are important, but we are on a different topic now.

So What? A Standard. Now What?

That is correct. So what? What good is a standard if we don’t know if they were followed? So what, if the equipment gets abused?

After many years of creating standards, the ISO team decided that there needs to be a way to coordinate the use of the standard. What they decided is that everyone wanted to have customers who were satisfied with the quality of their product. Everyone wanted their employees to be satisfied with the quality of the products they created. Even if the product was not the highest quality in the world, everyone wants to tell their customers that they will deliver a product adjusted to the quality they pay for.

The ISO created a project studying, then refining methods of Quality Management. Because of the ISO’s ability to reach around the world to gather the best ideas, they refined the ideas of many people and many groups. They organized these management techniques and present it for everyone for free.

There are no ISO police. No one forces these quality management methods, or fines you if you do not use the system correctly!

On the other hand, there are now many thousands of organizations which are using these tools and processes and rules. In fact, many of these organizations will not work with, or buy from, companies which have not done the work to get certified by the rules of ISO 9000 and 9001. This is mostly true for big companies and militaries where they need to know that what they buy is consistently good.

This Won’t Work for Cinemas

One thing about ISO 9001 (and the associated documents of ISO 9000), is that the rules must be followed by the entire organization.

For a cinema theater, that would mean that all the processes in the building (ticketing and handrails and internet and projection), and all the support processes (accounting and purchasing and delivery) – even making popcorn probably – will have to be coordinated along the lines of the ISO rules.

This type of completely coordinated rule and process coordination is not going to happen in most cinemas.

Why not? For many reasons. The first reason is that it is a very complex job to make an entire organization get these rules in line in every division of a company. It takes years of developing a team that develops custom processes and rules, and teams to make certain the rules are being followed.

These steps and teams and systems are valuable, but too costly for small organizations. [Maybe if someone came up with a series of tools just for cinemas! What an idea! And then trained the users of the equipment how to judge whether things were going right! Ah! Indeed. That is exactly what this little system is for. …for big companies and small.]

But there is value in the ideas for making a consistent process. We only want to use the ISO tools that would be efficient and effective for the projection system, for example. And of course,this includes the auditorium, since the results of the projection room – the safe presentation of the brilliant picture and sound – happen in there.

So, What IS the Good Stuff?

The ISO people figured out a few important things about Quality Management.

The 1st is: Most of the time there is no professional, trained, technical person in most facilities. This is true in the modern digital cinema facility.

The 2nd is: There are capable people who can be trained to:

1. 1. perform checks on the systems
   2. inform the technical people when something is trending in the wrong direction.

3rd: These checks must be done on a consistent basis.

4th: Management must support the process

1. 1. but not as a normal part of the operations
   2. there must be a direct line between the Quality Assurance Team and the upper management team.

5th: Training must be consistent and also supported by upper management

• • meaning that it can’t be blown off because there weren’t enough people scheduled that day to handle other tasks – the orders of Quality Management come from above local management and even the accountants and operations teams in upper management
  • meaning that the big boss has to sign-off on any decision that would make training temporarily go away, or become less important
  • meaning that capital ‘T’ Training is a benefit to the employee that can’t be taken away arbitrarily. It is a benefit to the employee, and also a benefit to the customer. …so very important to the company!

There must be more, but let’s get out of theory and into the practical.

Enough Theory – How? What?

How does this all work then? …and why is it important?

We will discuss this in the Section 2 of: Training and You and the ISO 9001 Management System.

But the basic principle is that of the Virtuous Circle, about which the Collins Dictionary says:

If you describe a situation as a virtuous circle, you mean that once one good thing starts happening, other good things happen, which cause the first thing to continue happening.
For example:

Exercise creates its own virtuous circle. You feel so good you want to continue.

or

…a virtuous circle of investment and growth.

…which seems to be a good idea: a good process – and a good result – that circles up for more and better all around!