Practical application of ISO 9000 Standard

1. REAL CASE CONTEXT

San Miguel Arcángel, S.A. is a Spanish company dedicated to processing Alperujo, a waste
material coming from the Olive Oil industry that can be transformed into a series of valuable
sub-products. This company has in its value chain, the production of some processes and
resources which manifest the customer’s demand. Within this processes, the most time-
consuming part is the drying of the resulting sub-products (olive pits and Orujo) in order to
obtain biomass that can be sold or used for energy generation. The company has just one rotary
dryer to process Orujo, shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Rotary dryer.

After receiving the order from the customers, who demand the consumption of orujo pellets,
the company must ensure that the product is present at the place of sale to the final consumer
within the established period of time.

2. MAIN PROPOSED PROBLEM AND TAKEN SOLUTION

Many times, customers have stated that the delivery of their orders could not be assumed by
the alperujo processing company. This is probably due to the fact that the production system
only has one industrial dryer, being this the key process. Since the drying is the key process, we
will focus efforts and opportunities for improvement on this stage. Therefore, a proposal is
made for expanding the processing plant capacity by acquiring a second piece of equipment, to
increase the production speed.

On the other hand, a problem has been detected with respect to the involvement of factory
operators, as they aren’t engaged enough in achieving quality objectives. Although this
problem has less of an impact on the company’s results than the one previously stated, it is an
important factor for meeting the production target. That is why, actions will be taken on the
commitment and training of workers to achieve our objectives.

3. APPLICATION OF THE CONCEPTS STUDIED TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM

In order to benefit the collaboration of the operators so they can feel involved in the production
process, leading to the best possible quality in their products, we will proceed to conduct a
survey for the quality department so that, through their experience, operators can give their
opinion on how to improve the critical process mentioned above. Looking at the results of the
survey, 94% of the operators agreed to buy a second piece of equipment, to increase the
resources and accelerate the production in order to fulfill the customer’s demand, since
increasing the staff would probably slow down the process.

Several alternatives of possible solutions have been considered, taking into account all the
points of view and criteria that may affect the business objectives and strategies, such as, for
example, the care put in by the workers in the quality of the processes or the degree of
commitment of the operators so that the dryer is the only weak point of the process.

4. ACHIEVEMENTS
After the study of different alternatives to improve the production process, the main problem
has been solved, which was the supply without delays, reaching therefore some achievements
and benefits in the internal quality management.
Firstly, the opinion of the operators has been taken into account. By doing so, an improvement
is achieved in the decision-making process, thus avoiding possible later problems due to
disparities of opinions between departments. Furthermore, by taking the operators into account
in decision-making, an environment that leads to a notable improvement in the performance
and capability of the company has been achieved.
Having a second dryer also provides a series of added advantages, such as increased operating
time, avoiding production stoppages when preventive or corrective maintenance has to be
carried out on one of the dryers, as they are in active redundancy. In addition, by installing a
second drying unit, a constant flow of product is achieved, satisfying the customer’s demand.

5. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES
[1] Spanish standard UNE-EN ISO 9000:2015. Quality management systems: fundamentals and
vocabulary. ISO 9000:2015 (2015) AENOR.
[2] https://smarcangel.es/

[3] https://www.infoagro.com/documentos/proceso_elaboracion_del_aceite_orujo_oliva.asp

6. GROUP MEMBERS
Lourdes Fernández Píriz - lourdesfpiriz@gmail.com
Teresa Linares Serrano - marlinser@alum.us.es
Juan Antonio Camargo Molina - juanancamargomolina@gmail.com
Héctor López Pérez - hectorlope1999@gmail.com
Alex Mattsson - alemat@alum.us.es

7. WORK CONTRIBUTED BY EACH STUDENT

This document has been produced and drafted jointly by the five members of the group through
a collaborative document that can be edited in real time by all the participants, as well as a
meeting in which each member contributed with their perception of the different knowledge
acquired throughout the theoretical lessons regarding this topic.