ISO follies

["Alex Silbajoris" <alsilba -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Our company is in the process of obtaining ISO certification.  I have no 
problem with documenting and following procedures, but I'm becoming 
increasingly annoyed by the approach taken by the coordinator of the effort.

I doubt she would know what a procrustean bed is, but that's what I have to 
confront when I deal with her.  One example is her insistence that all ISO 
documentation be formatted in fully-justified 12 pt Arial.  You can imagine 
the effect of "rivers" of white space we get in the documents.

(It doesn't help that she adopted another company's template in MS Word, 
whose Normal style was given the shadow attribute ... quit laughing at me!)

But that isn't the end of it.  We have templates; the templates are 
considered "forms" under this ISO scheme; the ISO forms "shall" be in 
fully-justified 12 pt Arial; so she wants me to put all our templates into 
that format.

But wait, there's more ... we use Visio to create data flow and network 
diagrams.  She has adopted a set of standard flowchart shapes to document 
ISO processes.  OK so far.  However, I absolutely cannot make her understand 
that some of these charts are not documenting ISO processes, but automated 
processes among systems.  The ISO shapes address procedures, inspections, 
quality records, etc., but there is no shape for a data file, or program, or 
for many of the things we need to illustrate.

My question for the list is, has anyone else had to deal with this 
situation?  Is there some outside authority I can cite to her, to help raise 
her eyes?

(Please don't bother to respond to me directly, as the spam pressure on this 
address has made me switch it to "exclusive" acceptance of only a very few 
senders, such as this list.)

Thank you, and I hope your Monday is going better than mine.

- A


_________________________________________________________________
Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. 
http://www.hotmail.com


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Now's a great time to buy RoboHelp! You'll get SnagIt screen capture
software and a $200 onsite training voucher FREE when you buy RoboHelp
Office or RoboHelp Enterprise. Hurry, this offer expires February 28, 2002. www.ehelp.com/techwr

Have you looked at the new content on TECHWR-L lately?
See http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ and check it out.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.