Quality Management System for Micro and Small Enterprises

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a structured method to implant a quality management system, following the requirements of the ISO 9001 in micro and small enterprises. This method also uses concepts from the Balanced Scorecard, the 5S Program, the QC Story and the São Paulo Management Quality Award. Simplification and interconnection among these concepts were performed using information from the literature review. They were implemented in seven micro and small enterprises and have been very successful. Through the initial and final assessments, we could evaluate the progress that each enterprise achieved in terms of quality management. Many of the deficiencies of the enterprises observed before the implementation have been solved. The main differences of the proposed method in relation to the models present by the literature is the simplified form of presentation of the requirements of the ISO 9001, the interconnection of the quality management system with business strategies, the self-assessment mechanism and the great amount of examples to facilitate the understanding of the entrepreneur. This characterizes the originality of the proposed method.