Many companies hope to achieve ISO 9000 certification as their quality management system, while still maintaining a leadership position in the industry with 100% of their clients reporting that their satisfaction is “good” or “excellent.” Existing mechanisms for managing quality-related documents and processes can be improved by using Microsoft SharePoint as a platform. Most systems used for managing quality information are closed, and do not allow information to be imported and exported to common desktop applications like Word or Excel. Quality processes are often manual, with no central way of monitoring the process for current status.

Myriad Technologies have developed a system to manage the ISO 9000/9001 quality system. The first part of the application to be deployed is an incident reporting system that can be accessed by any employee in the company with access to a web browser. When an incident is reported, it is automatically routed to the correct manager so that corrective and/or preventive actions can be identified and put into practice. The incident report form, corrective actions, and preventive actions are housed in a document library that controls access, edit permissions, workflows, and policies related to end-of-life for the information. Information about incidents can be rolled up and analysed by time period, department, originator, and any number of different dimensions.

The incident reporting application is only the first of many ISO 9000-related processes that are housed on the SharePoint platform. SharePoint’s comprehensive ability to handle document libraries, record vaults, document policies, and automated workflows are applied to ISO 9000 audits, management reviews, training profiles, non-conforming product, and other elements of the company’s quality management system. Additionally, by deploying SharePoint to support ISO 9000 processes, a company also has access to all of SharePoint’s resources for communication and collaboration, enterprise content management, and business intelligence for the entire company.