What is ISO 9001?
ISO stands for International Organisation of Standardisation. In complying with ISO 9001 standards, each company must say what it does through documentation and processes, do what it says through action, and prove it to an independent, objective third party.
ISO 9001: 2008 - has been described as the quality certificate with a small name and a large agenda!
Its aim is to make efficiency, profitability and corporate desirability a realistic part of your company manifesto, easily and with minimum financial burden. Here's a list of just some of the aspects of your business that it will address:
Management Responsibility: Who's responsible for making it happen - everybody, your personnel know exactly what their responsibilities are and where they fit in the organization.
Customers' Requirements: We need to be confident that your customers' requirements and expectations are fully understood, and that you have the capability to satisfy them. Having an agreed, documented record of this will help to prevent misunderstandings.
Control Systems: How do you make sure that a consistent level of product or services is delivered? You have controls. Clear, concise, written procedures are developed with the appropriate employees. These should be easily understood, practical, to the point, and most importantly, always followed. According to the nature of every individual business such controls may be applied to:
· Handling, storage, packaging, preservation and delivery.
· Product identification and traceability.
· Control of inspection, measuring and test equipment.
· Statistical techniques.
· Document complaints system.
Training: Your training policy will be examined and recorded.
Document and Data Control: These ensure that procedures and other valuable information is only given to those who really need it, and a record is kept of what has been issued to whom.
Management Review: So it's a continuous process? Yes, the last link in the process is to take an overview of the total system to make sure it's working effectively and continually improving.
ISO's rules for the development of standards require their periodic review to decide if they need revising, maintaining or withdrawing. Compared to the 2000 revision, ISO 9001:2008 represents fine-tuning, rather than a thorough overhaul. It introduces clarifications to the requirements existing in ISO 9001:2000, based on user experience over the last eight years, and changes that are intended to improve further compatibility with the ISO 14001:2004 standard for environmental management systems.
Please contact us if you are looking for assistance in the change over which will be both cost and time efficient.
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