The people behind @bout quality
Since 2003 we have supported companies with management systems, audits and standards. We are a small team at two locations: Marion Rammé and Michael Bremer work in Hamburg, Rüdiger Rammé and Monika Rammé in Lüneburg.
Marion and Rüdiger both advise on standards, management systems and audits, and they always handle the first contact themselves.
Whoever you reach, you are therefore always speaking to someone who can advise you fully on the subject. Rüdiger also brings in the software side: databases, interfaces and software validation. Michael Bremer is our specialist for laboratory accreditation and measurement uncertainty. Monika Rammé is currently working her way into the standards.
What drives us
“ISO? Just a millstone round our necks!” Hearing that in a client meeting is exactly what spurs me on. For more than 20 years I have put my heart into my clients and the projects we run together. I like looking for solutions that work in practice, and what I enjoy most is the moment when the benefit of the system we have built outweighs the effort of setting it up and keeping it going – and that sentence turns into “ISO? We could not do without it, and we would not want to!”
“We have always done it that way here.” Behind that there is almost always a list that somebody maintains by hand because two systems refuse to talk to each other. That is exactly where I like to start: an interface instead of retyping, a report instead of a search. The best moment for me is when a job that used to cost a day every month is simply gone, and the evidence for the audit falls out of the new process along the way.
A standard tells you that you have to state the measurement uncertainty. It does not tell you what your number actually means. That is precisely what interests me: where a result comes from, which influences are hidden inside it and how reliable it really is. Once you have worked that through, you do not merely meet the standard – you measure better. The standard is the frame. The real work is the knowledge behind it.
I am learning the standards from the ground up at the moment. Doing that, I notice how quickly something sounds self-evident that is not self-evident at all to the people doing the job. A management system only works if people work with it rather than around it. So I would rather ask one time too many whether a rule really lands in everyday work. If it does, the system is a good one.
The team
Dipl.-Kff. Marion Rammé
Management systems consulting · Lead Auditor · Hamburg
IRCA certified and registered QMS / EMS / OHSMS Lead Auditor #01194927
marion.ramme@bout-quality.de · LinkedIn profile · Xing profile
Rüdiger Rammé
Management systems consulting · Lead Auditor · Software & databases · Lüneburg
IRCA certified and registered QMS / OHSMS Lead Auditor #01192806
+49 4131 2198634 · ruediger.ramme@bout-quality.de · LinkedIn profile · Xing profile
Michael Bremer
Specialist for laboratory accreditation, medical devices, measurement uncertainty · Hamburg
Honorary member of the DKD expert committees (chemical measurands and material properties, liquid volume and density)
Monika Rammé
Trainee · Lüneburg
In progress: ISO 9001, ISO 14001
Marion is internationally certified and registered as an IRCA Lead Auditor for ISO 9001 quality management systems, ISO 45001 occupational health and safety management systems and, as the only member of the team, also for environmental management systems to ISO 14001.
Rüdiger is likewise internationally certified and registered as an IRCA Lead Auditor, for ISO 9001 quality management systems and ISO 45001 occupational health and safety management systems. He also develops databases, interfaces and software validation.
Michael is an honorary member of the DKD expert committees Chemische Messgrößen und Stoffeigenschaften and Flüssigkeitsvolumen und Dichte, with a focus on ISO/IEC 17025.
The individual qualifications are listed in the table below.
Who covers which standard
For eight of the thirteen standards at least two people in our team are qualified. It matters to us that your support continues during holidays or illness, which is why we aim for the largest possible overlap across the management system standards.
The tick marks the qualification. The bracket (IRCA LA) additionally names the registration as a Lead Auditor with IRCA – which you can verify externally through the registration numbers above, without having to take our word for it.
| Standard | Marion | Rüdiger | Michael |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISO 9001 – Quality management | ✓ (IRCA LA) | ✓ (IRCA LA) | ✓ |
| ISO 14001 – Environmental management | ✓ (IRCA LA) | ✓ | |
| ISO 45001 – Occupational health and safety | ✓ (IRCA LA) | ✓ (IRCA LA) | |
| ISO 13485 – Medical devices | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| ISO 22000 / GHP – Food safety | ✓ | ||
| ISO 21469 – Lubricants | ✓ | ✓ | |
| ISO 50001 – Energy management | ✓ | ✓ | |
| ISO/IEC 17025 – Laboratory accreditation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| ISO/IEC 27001 – Information security | ✓ | ||
| ISO 31000 – Risk management | ✓ | ✓ | |
| ISO 22301 – Business continuity | ✓ | ||
| IATF 16949 – Automotive industry | ✓ | ||
| VDA 6.3 – Automotive process audit | ✓ |
In addition: customer requirements in mineral oil processing (Marion, Rüdiger) and automotive (Marion), health management (Marion), medical device technology (Marion, Rüdiger), service management and measurement uncertainty (Michael).
Why our clients stay
Our first clients from 2003 are still our clients today. That is not down to long contracts – we work without any contractual tie-in – but to the fact that a management system is not finished once it is certified. It stays alive: standards are revised, certifications are extended, new sites are added, new production processes are introduced, internal and supplier audits take place every year, customer requirements and other binding obligations change. Those are just a few of the reasons why continuous support with a flexible external workload makes sense. We work when we are needed. On top of that, anyone who has followed all of this for twenty years knows the history and does not have to start from scratch every time. On the contrary, they can pass their knowledge on to new staff in the company and so help keep it in the business.
For this to hold, support must not depend on a single person. For almost every standard at least two of us are qualified. Whoever takes over knows the standard just as well and only needs to read into your system.
If you are looking for support that will still be there in ten years, this is one of the criteria worth checking, with us and with any other provider. How do the consultants keep up to date? Do they hold external certifications and registrations that prove their competence, such as an entry in the International Register of Certificated Auditors (IRCA)? And how is continuity of support ensured?
What helps us day to day: communication. We are in constant contact with each other. When a difficult question comes up, nobody looks for the answer alone; we look at it together. So you can be sure of benefiting from our shared experience across a wide range of industries.
Marion and Rüdiger always bring the consultant's view and, beyond that, the view of the external assessor as the basis for their advice, because they also work as external auditors for various certification bodies. That gives you the full mix: industry experience, more than 20 years of consulting, continuous training and experience from external auditing.
Locations
Registered office: Stöteroggestr. 36, 21339 Lüneburg
Second location: Hamburg
We work throughout Germany, including places that take longer to reach. Part of the work can be done remotely; audits and site inspections take place on site.