Quality management and personnel participation: Improvement teams, a solution for ISO 9000 system maintenance problems in small to medium‐sized enterprises

Abstract

Abstract Nowadays, companies have not only the challenge of developing systems for quality management, but also others of promoting and assuring the improvement of quality. Personnel participation becomes the key for quality system survival and improvement in the long term. This article contains the basis of a methodology that, within the framework of the ISO 9001:2000 standard and based on an Improvement Teams Program, contributes to quality management system maintenance on the way to excellence. The main target of this methodology is the small to medium‐sized enterprise. This methodology is illustrated with a brief description of its application in a leading Spanish company in the textile‐fashion‐clothing industry. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 14: 221–237, 2004.