Might want to be moved to the business forum this one.
Essentially, a QMS system operates on the principle of:
(1) Document the Business
(2) Follow the Documentation
(3) Audit the Following
(4) Note the differences
(5) Amend the Documentation
(6) Follow the Documentation
(7) Audit the Following
(8) Note the Differences
(9) Ad infinitum.
In essence, the point is to produce documentation that describes your business, and how it does things, so that you can then refer to the documentation, and do a given thing the same way every time.
However, it can be daunting, especially because so many "consultants" like to make things as complicated as they possibly can, to black art the subject, and justify charging thousands for something that forces you into changes you don't need or want.
While it would help to know specifically what your QMS fails were, I can bet you weren't consistent in a process somewhere, or the auditor felt you were missing a process, or paperwork.
Here's the easy way to QMS heaven:
First up - flowchart your business operation.
By this, I mean, draw a flowchart which takes you from customer enquiry, to getting your paws on their cash. There should be many "sub-flows" along the way - for example:
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Phone Rings/Website Email Enquiry/Pigeon Falls out of the sky with a slate and chisel/whatever means enquiry generated.
What do you do next?
Answer Phone/Respond to email/Pick Pigeon Up......
Key Point: RECORD THE INFORMATION IN SOME UNIQUE WAY. This is the point your audit trail starts.
From this point on, that enquiry needs tracking from here to the very end of your dealings with it.
------
So, next to the enquiry, two results are possible - either no further action, or a further action such as a survey.
No further action is the end of the process, and needs parking in a "no further action" trail, for future reference, and identification - also very useful for sales, marketing and analysis.
In short, you need to be able to identify that you had an enquiry, and that it resulted in no further action. You may, alternatively have an "information sending" process in this part of your flowchart - e.g. sent information, no further action, or sent information, leading to - --- a further action thus:
Alternatively, there may be a further action - a survey, or a sale.
Let's assume for the moment, a survey.
The enquiry need to track to the survey, and vice versa. It also needs a unique identifier, and it needs to be recorded so as to audit end to end. So describe your survey process, in flowchart form. Again, from this point, there are two possible outcomes - sale, or no further action. However, you may spend some time in this loop, if the customer varies your initial survey in any way and you end up doing more than one quote on essentially the same job.
Then you document your sales process, including acceptance by customer of quote, deposit taking, stock ordering, completion (including test result recording, hand over, etc), invoicing, and so on.
Finally, customer records reflecting the correct customer, correct job, and in such a way you can audit it now, or in five years.
Once you've flow-charted the business, then go through it again, and note (preferably assigning a unique ID) each bit of paperwork you use at that process.
Then you document the way in which you perform each process.
And finally, you end up with a system that describes your business, and how it operates.
The thing about QMS consultants, as I say, is that they often want to rebuild the processes of your business to fit their pre-determined templates. Not clever, really, as the idea is to make the system fit the way your business works. Every business is run a different way, which is why templated systems are often rigid, and enforce extra processes on businesses, when they really don't need them.
I'm not sure where in the UK you are, but let me know what fails you got, I may be able to help a bit more.