Ziel
ICARE 9000 helps small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use modern telematics to attain quickly and economically the recognised European quality standards (EN29000 and ISO9000) needed for international competitiveness. The project aims to improve the access of SMEs in less-favoured areas to ISO9000 training courses, the follow-up of information and to offer telematics advisory support to quality engineers for whom regular travel to traditional courses is costly and time-consuming.
The ISO9000 norm for the management of quality have been first developed by the International Standardisation Organisation and are now accepted as an European norm within the EN29000 series. Market forecasts clearly show that the number of certificates will drastically increase in the following years. In 1996/1997, 20 % of European companies are expected to have or to be in the process of getting the ISO9000 certificate. In addition to the marketing "plus-value", the ISO certificate guaranties a quality insurance presenting the following advantages:
- it conforms to internationally accepted standards
- it provides the ground for a permanent quality improvement
- it facilitates the production of proof in the context of product liability
- it reduces the fixed costs and the costs resulting from products' and services' quality failures.
To prepare themselves for the ISO9000 certificate, the Small and Medium sized Entreprises (SMEs) require external help in the form of consulting and/or upgrading the skills in the quality engineers of the quality department (if present).
Attending courses is time consuming because most of the SMEs are widely dispersed and several journeys are necessary to complete the certification process. It is not cost-effective : the travel introduces high costs and loss of time for people who play an important role in the company. Last but not least consulting companies are normally established in densely populated regions.
Clearly, the current approach in not adapted to the needs of SMEs with a small number of employees and low revenues. The problem is particularly acute for remotely located SMEs and SMEs in less-favoured regions. Not being ISO9000 certified in the next years could be a serious handicap because only ISO9000 certified companies can supply companies that are ISO9000 certified.
Modern telecommunications tools, combined with the outcome of the European Research and Development programs can help the SMEs to reduce the costs of achieving high-level quality and obtaining the ISO9000 certificates necessary for their international competitiveness. The ICARE project will propose telematics services - specified for SMEs and validated by SMEs which act as real testbed users :
- to improve the access to training courses for ISO9000,
- to access further information after attending the ISO9000 courses,
- to offer on-demand consulting based on multi-media services offering a wide range of possibilities, based on a high performance network also available in less-favoured regions.
ICARE will contribute to
- re-enforcing the competitiveness and the development of employment in SMEs in the Community,
- accelerating and improving the qualification of the quality engineers in the SMEs and
- giving the SMEs in less-favoured regions the possibility to remain competitive on their market and gain new international markets.
ICARE trials in a real environment will be extended at the end of the project to be exploited commercially as a powerful service aimed at increasing the competitiveness of the European SMEs. The added value of ICARE is planned for the short, medium and long term.
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10587 Berlin
Deutschland