Introducing Quality System in Small and Medium Enterprises: An Experience Report

The institutionalization of a Quality System improves the levels of technical and managerial efficiency of Enterprises. Moreover, the market itself solicits the acquisition of a Quality Certification for getting a steady confirmation of Enterprise's capabilities. The introduction of a Quality System in Small and Medium Enterprises can entail prohibitive costs for them and affect their agility and flexibility. The paper proposes a lightweight approach as a solution to either avoid or reduce such drawbacks; it consists of a method for redesigning processes and a software system to control and monitoring processes' execution. Consequently, a research question arises: is the approach suitable for establishing a Quality System effectively in a Small Medium Enterprise? In order to have a preliminary evaluation of the proposed approach, a case study has been carried out in an Italian Enterprise, aiming at owning VISION 2000 Certification.