From January 1998

Too Much Paperwork Will Ruin an ISO 9000 Quality System

One of the comments we hear regularly from people who are considering implementing an ISO 9000 quality system is that ’there will be loads of paperwork’. A recent example we saw of this were procedures for recording from a CCTV system. The four procedures ran to 31 pages.

The procedures were repetitious, did not flow and were therefore confusing. Staff will simply not read procedures like this. Very probably the only person who ever did was the person who wrote them. Procedures should be succinct, easy to read and unambiguous.

Statius re wrote these to 5 pages - a reduction of 26 pages. The same information was presented in a clear, readable format, which can be used as a training guide for new staff.