What is ISO 9001?
ISO 9001-2015 is the world's largest management system certification and implementation of the ISO 9001-2015 helps you to establish an effective system in your organization. ISO 9001-2015 is not product certification but ensures that an organization's management systems are effective and meet the requirement of the ISO 9001-2015 standards which is the latest version of the QMS. ISO 9001:2015 sets out the criteria for a quality management system and is the only standard in the family that can be certified to (although this is not a requirement). It can be used by any organization, large or small, regardless of its field of activity. There are over one million companies and organizations in over 170 countries certified to ISO 9001.
Part of the family
ISO 9001 belongs to the ISO 9000 family of standards. Some of these documents are intended for certification, others for guidance. The most commonly referred to of these, apart from ISO 9001, is ISO 9000 which describes the fundamental concepts and vocabulary of the quality management standards.
ISO 9000 also describes the 7 quality management principles:
Customer focus
this applies to both internal and external customers. Customer focus is the primary focus of quality management and seeks to meet customer needs and to strive to exceed their expectations. Customer focus aims to create value for the customer.
Leadership
effective leadership creates a unity of purpose and direction. Strong direction ensures all activities within the organization are aligned to strategies, polices and processes to collectively achieve planned objectives.
Engagement of people
involving people means ensuring they are competent, empowered and engaged. Effective engagement of people gives the organization the tools to achieve its aims.
Process approach
this has been a staple of quality management standards for many years. Knowing your inputs, actions and intended outputs makes day-to-day operations predictable and repeatable. Effectively managing processes ensures resources are used efficiently and highlights areas for improvement.
Improvement
Improvement is not about an admission of weakness or fault, but simply a desire to do better and keep doing better for the benefit of all involved.
Evidence
based decision making – how many of us have ever made an impulse purchase? Do we really believe that businesses don’t also make that same mistake sometimes? Of course they do! But, by applying evidence-based decision making, decisions can be based on known requirements and the planned outcomes, direction and purpose of the organization, having involved the customers and people and with improvement in mind.
Relationship management
this applies to all relationships of the organization. Often it pays to know your competitors as closely as you know your customers. Building networks, engaging the general public, reaching your target audience, all of these things are essential to achieve the aims of a profitable enterprise.
Benefits of ISO 9001
- Increased efficiency – Implement processes and procedures which are based on a quality focus.
- Increased revenue – win more contracts and tenders, whilst streamlining your processes and identifying opportunities for cost savings.
- Greater employee morale – by ensuring that all employees are working to one agenda you can reduce errors and increase productivity.
- International recognition – recognised in approximately 188 countries, ISO 9001 can help you to access international trade.
- Factual approach to decision making – ensure the business decisions you make are beneficial long term by basing them on facts.
- Better supplier relationships – business has credibility through the reputation of ISO 9001, providing suppliers with greater confidence in what you do.
- Improved record keeping – as with any management system, ISO 9001 ensures you document your processes from start to finish. Helping you to handle customer complaints and improve process efficiency.
- Improved customer satisfaction – ensure you have a feedback system in place which will help you to understand your customers’ needs, identify areas for improvement and reduce wasted resources.
- Continuous improvement – using non-conformity reporting and trend analysis, you can spot areas for improvement and stay ahead of the competition.
Get the most from your management systems
- Start with “Why”. Make sure your reasons for implementing a QMS are aligned with your strategic direction otherwise it may become unsustainable.
- Get everyone involved. They don’t all have to become decision-makers but make sure you communicate as relevant to everyone. Engagement is key to success.
- Make sure your quality objectives are SMART(Specific / Measurable / Achievable / Realistic / Timebound)
- ISO 9001:2015 doesn’t prescribe any specific method of risk assessment so implement a strategy that works for you and is relevant for your organization.
- ISO 9001:2015 doesn’t prescribe the creation of a quality manual. However, you do need to consider where you will contain your quality documentation, policies and procedures. They can be in any format, soft or hard copy.
- Protect electronic documents from unintended alteration or destruction using access permissions and make sure you have back-up copies.
- Write your quality policy in such a manner that you are happy for it to be seen by anyone and everyone. A copy is likely to be requested in formal tendering procedures.
- Process documentation doesn’t have to be all written. You can use images, videos, models and prototypes to bring them to life. Making them meaningful and accessible to all your employees will boost engagement and adherence to planned processes.
- Review your monitoring and measuring activities regularly to ensure you’re monitoring and measuring the right things. These activities should be providing you with useful business intelligence that can inform the way you operate.
- There is no substitute for commitment from top management. An effective QMS is promoted, supported and engaged with by the highest level of leadership.