Iso 9000 For the Small Business: Concepts And Misconceptions

Far cheaper and much better than ISO 9000 Video Seminar (VL-9/93), which cost $595 and made an evening of senatorial filibuster seem pretty exciting by comparison, the two-volume ISO 9000 for the Small Business: Concepts and Misconceptions is still an arduous chore to watch. A videotaped seminar, presented by a pair of Michigan professors and a businessman, the program is your basic low-tech guide (using projected transparencies) to the ISO 9000 quality standards. Emphasizing the importance of the fact that ISO 9000 has achieved worldwide acceptance, the presenters run through the purposefully vague stipulations of the standards, whose chief attributes seem to be a strong paper trail of documentation and regular internal reviews. The allure of ISO 9000 is that it opens the door for international trade, since companies purchasing services from ISO 9000 companies will be assured of a certain level of quality (at least in theory). However, the video is basically low-budget, the presenters occasionally drift off the point (or embark on shaggy dog stories--one golf epic is a real time and attention killer), and the occasional audience question is sometimes unintelligible. Too, the fact that there are some glaring misspellings in the speakers' transparencies suggests that maybe a little quality control might be in order for future presentations. Some good insights in a so-so video series. An optional purchase. (R. Pitman)