Yep, you have to buy into the system for it to work. If you're doing it just as a paperwork exercise it will cost your business money instead of actualy making you more profitable. But at the end of the day some companies won't even talk to you unless you got it.
I've been involved with ISO90001 since it was BS5750 (showing my age now). I'm a founder member of the Chartered Quality Institute and a Lead Auditor.
I've written my own Quality Manual, Procedures, Works Instructions etc etc and it did take a lot of time, but that was for a big defence company so it had to be right and it did work. In my current job we sub- conned the certification to a third party and, ok, we got the certification but it didn't really add much to the company profits since it was purely a paperwork exercise.
Basicaly, in it's simiplest form, you ask everyone what they do then write it down and tell them that's how they should do their job. The biggest hassle is internal audits but even that becomes not too bad when folk realise you're not "out to get them", but to improve the company. One very useful hint: if they're not working to procedure then change the procedure instead of getting them to change how they do whatever it is they're doing.
Continual improvement: If, on your first audit you are 100% perfect then there's no room for improvement, better to be a wee bit bad on the first audit so that next year you can say "look! we're improving a lot".
Training: An easy way round this is internal CD courses, can be anything from "anger management" to "finance for non financial managers", I've found that people actualy enjoy the change from their normal work routine. They get a nice certificate and you have documented proof that you're implementing a structured training regime.
As an aside; I left that big defence company a few years back when I was required to implement ISO14000, the environmental procedure. We made missiles and I couldn't figure out how to make them environmentaly friendly- they're designed to blow things up, including the environment.
Environmentaly friendly missiles *shakes head* an obvious oxymoron if ever I heard one
