AAQA BACKGROUND

2.0. A VIABLE SOLUTION:
In response to these concerns, the Association's founding members prepared a General Discussion Paper (GDP) which was tabled by the British Standards Society (the now disbanded Standard users' sector of the British Standards Institution) at the 1995 Conference of IFAN (International Federation for the Application of Standards) as a focal point for all-party debate.

AAQA's GDP outlined a TRANSITIONAL MECHANISM by which (in the above comparative "driving School" context) emergent businesses could secure an internationally recognisable and INDEPENDENTLY AWARDED "PROVISIONAL Management System license" as an operationally meaningful "springboard" towards the eventual attainment by them of INDEPENDENTLY ASSESSED compliance with all or any of ISO's then rapidly expanding portfolio of "FULL Management System" criteria.

3.0. KEY OBJECTIVES: The GDP proposed (inter alia):

1) that the invariably Sector specific and/or unavoidably intrusive activities of many Third-party Assessment regimes needed to be underpinned by a similarly Sector specific series of FOUNDATIONAL QUALITY AWARD PROGRAMMES aimed specifically at the normative (i.e. comparatively small volume/average cost/low risk) end of an increasingly globalised marketplace;

2) that the key objectives for each foundational Programme were:

a) to promote greater GENERAL AWARENESS of the substantial consumer and environmental protection benefits that can be derived from independently accredited Third party Assessment/Certification processes;

b) to provide the Owners/Executive Managers of emergent businesses with an Award orientated incentive that was specifically designed to encourage them to:

i) identify, address and accept "Boardroom" responsibility and accountability for discharging the primary legal/customer-care/social/cultural and environmental obligations that inherently accompany marketplace participation irrespective of global location and;

ii) familiarise themselves (in an optimally user-friendly manner) with the principles, intellectual and operational disciplines and human, financial and other key resourcing requirements and the promotional and other numerous "in-house" benefits that accompany Third-party Assessment and Certification processes;

c) to provide a managerially and operationally challenging training and testing ground for consumer and/or environmental protection organisations (and other currently unrepresented protectionist Agencies) in which to establish themselves as independently accredited Third party Assessors and/or Registrars and;

d) to provide QA Consultants and other Management System Development specialists with (where possible) FREE ISSUE Supplier evaluation criteria as an optimally "user friendly" means of introducing their clients to the inherently complex realm of Third party Supplier capability assessment processes.

3) that all "end-user" compliance criteria generated by these foundational Programmes must more accurately reflect the localised marketplace needs of "High Street" consumers by focusing on the securing of Executive Management commitments relative to the enhanced protection of human, social and natural environments;

4) that Third-party Compliance Award Assessment Fees (relative to Programme specific criteria) must take into consideration the invariably limited resourcing capabilities of the vast majority of the world's small to medium sized businesses and must also reflect substantial differences in local trading/economic infrastructures;

5) that single (i.e. globally standardised) Quality Award SYMBOLS must be deployed in dedicated support of all Quality Award Schemes operating in support of the foundational Programmes;

6) that SME participation in all or any Quality Award Schemes generated by the Programmes must be on an entirely voluntary basis and that potential advancement from such foundational QA Schemes to more operationally demanding compliance regimes (e,g, Quality Assurance Schemes operating in dedicated support of ISO 9000:2000) must also be entirely voluntary; and

7) that (pending adoption of the foundational Programmes' Executive Management functions - i.e. by a commonly agreed International Regulatory Body) such Executive Management responsibilities would vest in and be operationally discharged by the Association.

4.0 "SPRINGS" CURRENT STATUS:

Although the GDP and a variety of other private sector "Provisional" licensing proposals have long-since established that ISO and its constituent Members are CONSTITUTIONALLY precluded from lending PROACTIVE support to ANY externally developed Initiatives, the unavoidably protracted and technically complex dialogue generated by the GDP has enabled the Association to sustain the integrity and enhance the benefits of QA to its now multi-tiered Membership infrastructure.

Today, the generic objectives of the GDP are outlined in the SPRINGS International (MODEL) Quality Mark Programme which the Association maintains in order to provide a full spectrum of FREE ACCESS templates against which the Association's Members and other academically or professionally interested parties can develop an operationally structured understanding of:

A) the scope, nature and normative content of consumer protective "Codes of Conduct";

B) the operational roles of Accreditation Bodies, Assessment/Certification Agencies and other (Third-party) "Registrars" and/or;

C) SUGGESTED METHODOLOGY by which they can UNILATERALLY DEVELOP QUALITY AWARD PROGRAMMES of their own and how they can best communicate their content to PROSPECTIVE END USERS.

5.0 "SPRINGS" PROGRAMME REVIEWS:

Annual reviews of the continuing effectiveness of the SPRINGS Model Programme and its notionally supportive compliance criteria are conducted by the Association and all Members of the Association and all other interested parties are cordially invited to participate in these on-going Review activities by e-mailing us and letting us know their area(s) of specialist interest.

About AAQA	THE HISTORY OF AAQA 1.0. ORIGINATING CONCERNS: The Association was constituted in 1993 in dedicated support of quality advancement activities originating in the late 1980's when ISO (the world's leading Standards Development Body) was first rumoured to be seriously contemplating the phased introduction of a wide diversity of "stand alone" publications in support of what was then still commonly known as the BS 5750 series of Management System Guidance Specifications. At that time, many Standards users were opposed to this expansion process because they felt that these envisaged Guidance Specifications would be: A) incapable of securing meaningful levels of collective commitment from the "Boardrooms" of major Corporations relative to the preservation of human, social, cultural and natural environments and; B) a disadvantage to emergent businesses and other small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) by discouraging them from adopting an integrated approach towards "Strategic Compliance Management" activities as well as placing unwarranted financial strains on what (for most SME's) are already severely limited resourcing capabilities. Briefly, other major practical concerns at that time were: 1) that, by and large, the "procurement based" objectives of this type of Guidance Specification (operating in support of major Contract awards) were far too complex for normative SME trading purposes; 2) that, the limited resourcing capabilities of most SMEs would prevent them from securing INDEPENDENTLY ASSESSED compliance against these Specifications; and 3) that the (still continuing) reluctance of ISO to endorse SINGLE (i.e. globally standardised) Symbols of INDEPENDENTLY ASSESSED compliance in support of these Specifications would prevent meaningful awareness of the many benefits of Third-party certification from rapidly percolating down to new and emergent trading entities and their "High Street" customers. In practical terms (from the then perspective of the Owners/Executive Managers of small and emergent businesses), the prospect of securing INDEPENDENTLY ASSESSED compliance credentials against, for example, what is now generally known as ISO 9000 criteria was viewed as being the business development equivalent of a Driving School insisting that its pupils undertake their on-road tuition in a heavy goods vehicle merely in order to qualify for a license to drive the family car. Indeed, even today, the majority of SME Proprietors throughout the world probably maintain that this is STILL a perfectly valid comparison! 2.0. A VIABLE SOLUTION: In response to these concerns, the Association's founding members prepared a General Discussion Paper (GDP) which was tabled by the British Standards Society (the now disbanded Standard users' sector of the British Standards Institution) at the 1995 Conference of IFAN (International Federation for the Application of Standards) as a focal point for all-party debate. AAQA's GDP outlined a TRANSITIONAL MECHANISM by which (in the above comparative "driving School" context) emergent businesses could secure an internationally recognisable and INDEPENDENTLY AWARDED "PROVISIONAL Management System license" as an operationally meaningful "springboard" towards the eventual attainment by them of INDEPENDENTLY ASSESSED compliance with all or any of ISO's then rapidly expanding portfolio of "FULL Management System" criteria. 3.0. KEY OBJECTIVES: The GDP proposed (inter alia): 1) that the invariably Sector specific and/or unavoidably intrusive activities of many Third-party Assessment regimes needed to be underpinned by a similarly Sector specific series of FOUNDATIONAL QUALITY AWARD PROGRAMMES aimed specifically at the normative (i.e. comparatively small volume/average cost/low risk) end of an increasingly globalised marketplace; 2) that the key objectives for each foundational Programme were: a) to promote greater GENERAL AWARENESS of the substantial consumer and environmental protection benefits that can be derived from independently accredited Third party Assessment/Certification processes; b) to provide the Owners/Executive Managers of emergent businesses with an Award orientated incentive that was specifically designed to encourage them to: i) identify, address and accept "Boardroom" responsibility and accountability for discharging the primary legal/customer-care/social/cultural and environmental obligations that inherently accompany marketplace participation irrespective of global location and; ii) familiarise themselves (in an optimally user-friendly manner) with the principles, intellectual and operational disciplines and human, financial and other key resourcing requirements and the promotional and other numerous "in-house" benefits that accompany Third-party Assessment and Certification processes; c) to provide a managerially and operationally challenging training and testing ground for consumer and/or environmental protection organisations (and other currently unrepresented protectionist Agencies) in which to establish themselves as independently accredited Third party Assessors and/or Registrars and; d) to provide QA Consultants and other Management System Development specialists with (where possible) FREE ISSUE Supplier evaluation criteria as an optimally "user friendly" means of introducing their clients to the inherently complex realm of Third party Supplier capability assessment processes. 3) that all "end-user" compliance criteria generated by these foundational Programmes must more accurately reflect the localised marketplace needs of "High Street" consumers by focusing on the securing of Executive Management commitments relative to the enhanced protection of human, social and natural environments; 4) that Third-party Compliance Award Assessment Fees (relative to Programme specific criteria) must take into consideration the invariably limited resourcing capabilities of the vast majority of the world's small to medium sized businesses and must also reflect substantial differences in local trading/economic infrastructures; 5) that single (i.e. globally standardised) Quality Award SYMBOLS must be deployed in dedicated support of all Quality Award Schemes operating in support of the foundational Programmes; 6) that SME participation in all or any Quality Award Schemes generated by the Programmes must be on an entirely voluntary basis and that potential advancement from such foundational QA Schemes to more operationally demanding compliance regimes (e,g, Quality Assurance Schemes operating in dedicated support of ISO 9000:2000) must also be entirely voluntary; and 7) that (pending adoption of the foundational Programmes' Executive Management functions - i.e. by a commonly agreed International Regulatory Body) such Executive Management responsibilities would vest in and be operationally discharged by the Association. 4.0 "SPRINGS" CURRENT STATUS: Although the GDP and a variety of other private sector "Provisional" licensing proposals have long-since established that ISO and its constituent Members are CONSTITUTIONALLY precluded from lending PROACTIVE support to ANY externally developed Initiatives, the unavoidably protracted and technically complex dialogue generated by the GDP has enabled the Association to sustain the integrity and enhance the benefits of QA to its now multi-tiered Membership infrastructure. Today, the generic objectives of the GDP are outlined in the SPRINGS International (MODEL) Quality Mark Programme which the Association maintains in order to provide a full spectrum of FREE ACCESS templates against which the Association's Members and other academically or professionally interested parties can develop an operationally structured understanding of: A) the scope, nature and normative content of consumer protective "Codes of Conduct"; B) the operational roles of Accreditation Bodies, Assessment/Certification Agencies and other (Third-party) "Registrars" and/or; C) SUGGESTED METHODOLOGY by which they can UNILATERALLY DEVELOP QUALITY AWARD PROGRAMMES of their own and how they can best communicate their content to PROSPECTIVE END USERS. 5.0 "SPRINGS" PROGRAMME REVIEWS: Annual reviews of the continuing effectiveness of the SPRINGS Model Programme and its notionally supportive compliance criteria are conducted by the Association and all Members of the Association and all other interested parties are cordially invited to participate in these on-going Review activities by e-mailing us and letting us know their area(s) of specialist interest.
The AAQA Team
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