ISO Quality Services Limited – June Newsletter

1 Jul, 2014

Welcome to the June edition of our newsletter, where the sun has shone for more than two days at a time, where we have experienced thunderstorms nearly every week and the strawberries are beautiful and ripe!

What’s in this issue?

Congratulations to our Newly Certificated Clients

Technical Drive Limited

Technical Drive Limited are based in Bromsgrove, South West of Birmingham and were founded in 2008 to provide quality technical support to businesses in the West Midlands.

They have recently achieved their ISO 9001:2008 Quality management standard.

They are a committed, no-nonsense IT support company organised to take the stress out of running your IT.  Their services include on-going IT support, server installations, business continuity, cabling and consultancy.

For more information on how they could help your business, please call 01527 880088, email or visit their website.

“Senior Lead Assessor, Colin Watkins (left), presenting Financial Controller, Suzanne Jarvis (centre), and Administration Assistant, Rhiannon Sheward (right) of Technical Drive Limited with their ISO 9001 Quality Management System Certificate.

Tacho-Fit Limited

Tacho-Fit Limited are a family-run business based in Castle Bromwich, West Midlands and were founded in 1997.

They have recently achieved their ISO 9001:2008 Quality management standard.

They are the UK leaders in the fitment and calibration of all types of tachographs, including analogue tachographs and digital tachographs, to all makes of vehicles, so you can be assured of the highest standard of service.  They also offer MOT Testing for Cars, Vans and Minibuses and work with both the trade and general public.

Want to know how Tacho-Fit Limited can help your business?  Call them today on 0121 747 7220 or visit their website

  

“Senior Lead Assessor, Colin Watkins (second from left), presenting Vicky / Workshop Manager, Dave Meehan (far left), Director, Derek McCarthy (second from right) and Director, Debbie McCarthy (far right) of Tacho-Fit Limited with their ISO 9001 Quality Management System Certificate.

Universal Document Solutions Ltd

Universal Document Solutions Limited are based in Hagley, West Midlands and were founded in 2013.

They have recently achieved their ISO 9001:2008 Quality and ISO 14001:2004 Environmental management standards with the scope of Sales of Office Print Hardware and Software, with Associated Customer Support.

The directors have a cumulative experience of nearly 40 years within print and software working at director level in both the manufacturer and dealer sides of the Industry.

They provide software as a service via either a cloud or server based solution together with the provision of the associated image capture devices. A strong partnership with Canon/Oce provides access to their complete range of software thereby allowing for a seamless integration with their equipment.

The company covers the whole of the United Kingdom and Eire.

Want to know how Universal Document Solutions Limited can add value to your company?  Call them today on 01562 882523, email or visit their website. 

Pictured from left “Chris Goff, Director, Universal Document Solutions Limited and Peter O’Neill, Lead Assessor, ISO Quality Services Limited”.

Bristol IT Company Ltd

Bristol IT Company Ltd are based in Bristol and were founded in 2009.

They have recently achieved their ISO 27001:2013 Information Security management standard, this joins their already implemented ISO 9001:2008 Quality management standard.

They provide IT support and software development for commercial clients, large and small, in a range of business environments.  They work on value-adding, business IT support and app development.  They are experts in computer hardware and software, networking, databases, and all areas of IT support.

They are happiest when helping their clients businesses grow.

Want to know how Bristol IT Company can help you grow?  Contact them today on 0117 370 0777, email  or visit their website

“Lead Assessor, Graham Binns (right), presenting Director, Amin Khataee (left) of Bristol IT Company Ltd with their ISO 27001:2013 Information Security Management System Certificate.

The importance of an Environmental Management System

ISO Quality Services Limited is proud to announce its success on holding their first Environmental Manager Training Course.

On Wednesday 30^th April we held our first full day Environmental Manager Training course at our ISO offices in Worcester, which took place within our training facility. The course was delivered to five delegates, all intrigued on how to improve their office environments and work on their management systems.

The day covered the following topics:

• What is ISO 14001:2004?
• Principles of Environmental Management
• The role of an Environmental Manager
• How to identify the Environmental aspects and measure the impact of these aspects
• Environmental objective setting and a guide to Environmental legislation
• How to use ISO 14001 to identify areas where cost savings can be identified or captured
• How to communicate the benefits and monitor the success within the company
• How to integrate ISO into your daily business activities
• Continuous improvement
• A guide to internal auditing

Did the delegates find the course useful? This is what they had to say:

‘I’d like to say a big thank you for the fantastic training day!’

‘The course has given me a better understanding of what I need to do going forward.’

‘I found it helpful that the course was a small group and was actually tailored to each customer’s needs.’

Colin Watkins, Senior Lead Assessor lead the training, here’s what he had to say:

‘I thought the course went well and helped that there were only four delegates in attendance.  I got the impression that the delegates felt, because of there being a small group that we were able to tailor the course to them almost on an individual basis’

(Pictured, Far left, Colin Watkins, ISO QSL, smiling delegates with their certificates and far right, Graham Binns, ISO QSL)

New dates released

Here at ISO Quality Services Ltd we understand the importance of training and are pleased to offer the following courses in support of your ISO Management Systems:

Quality Manager Training

Tuesday 9^th September 2014 – Full Day Course

Quality Manager training will cover the following topics, as well as allowing for question & answer sessions on the day:

• Principles and elements of ISO 9001
• Role of the Quality Manager
• How to integrate ISO into the daily activities of the business
• Effective objective setting
• How to run a Management Review Meeting effectively
• Guide to internal auditing
• Focus on bench marking and its importance to quality management
• Continuous improvement

Per Delegate £295.00 plus VAT

Environmental Manager Training

Wednesday 15^th October 2014 – Full Day Course

Environmental Manager training will cover the following key topics, as well as allowing for question & answer sessions on the day:

• What is ISO 14001:2004?
• Principles of Environmental Management
• The role of an Environmental Manager
• Using the management system as a strategic tool to identify areas where cost savings can be captured
• How to monitor the effectiveness of the management system within the company
• How to integrate ISO into your daily business activities and strategic planning of the Organisation
• Continuous improvement
• A guide to internal auditing

Per Delegate £295.00 plus VAT*

Internal Auditor Training

Tuesday 18^th and Wednesday 19^th November 2014

Internal Auditing training is a 2 day course covering the following topics, as well as allowing for question & answer sessions on the day:

• Principles of ISO
• The role of the Management Representative
• Brief overview on the management system to be audited
• What is the purpose of an audit?
• How should an audit be approached?
• Maximise the benefits of monitoring that the procedures are regularly being controlled
• Find and rectify negative trends, maximise positive trends
• A practical auditing exercise is undertaken by the delegate on the business, which will be marked

Per Delegate £395.00 plus VAT*

All prices are inclusive of course material and refreshments and we offer a multi booking discount should you wish to book more than one place on a course. Please ask for details. 

Sounds interesting? Do you want to know more? 

For further details of each course and others that we offer, please visit our website at www.isoqsltd.com/training

To book your place please call 01905 670303 or email our Training Co-ordinator debbie@isoqsltd.com

Did you know..?

 

Future is bright for ISO’s environment standards following recent meeting

 

ISO 14001 is one step closer to a new version following a week of meetings in Panama.  Experts discussed the environmental management system standard as well as other important documents dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and water footprint.

During 23rd – 28th May, international experts resolved comments and questions submitted during the revision process of ISO 14001 and the Draft International Standard is now expected to be published in early July 2014.

It was explained that some of the major changes to the document include a more proactive commitment to protect the environment as well as requirements to illustrate visible commitment from top management.

Standards help respond to environmental policy changes

Regularly revising the suite of environmental standards ensures they remain useful tools to adapt to policy guidelines; increasingly important as more and more governments around the world are making strong commitments to fighting climate change.

A couple of weeks ago, US President Barack Obama announced a new proposal for cutting carbon emissions from power plants as part of the US commitment to fighting climate change. According to Bob Page, chair of the group of experts working on the ISO 14000 family of standards (TC 207) and Professor at the University of Calgary, this announcement gives hope that international progress on climate change negotiations will continue.

In addition, he underlined the role International Standards will play in reaching climate change goals: “The critical question is whether world leaders can be mobilised in time for the Paris summit in December 2015. To achieve this goal we must have top down approaches such as national commitments, as well as bottom up actions such as companies using ISO’s environmental standards.”

Page explained that ISO has standards in many of the areas highlighted by the UN Secretary General for specific action, in addition to working hard to bring forward new carbon footprint and other climate related standards.

Source: For more information – Click here

 

Could this replace the ‘dying’ password

Times are changing, where soon you may be able to securely log on to your online accounts by just looking at your computer.

The password the way we know it today must die, we have to stop fighting that because it’s just going to fail over and over again.

As password breaches become the new normal, companies are being forced to find new ways of verifying their users and securing their data, security experts said.

While passwords won’t disappear tomorrow, companies are beginning to experiment with different ways to verify users, including facial recognition and other biometric features like a person’s fingerprint, voice or even certain behavioural patterns.

There are so many sensors on devices these days that could confirm that you are who you say you are, therefore there is no need to have passwords anymore.

Intel-owned by McAfee is betting big on biometrics being a significant part of online security going forward and has already rolled out some of this technology on its LiveSafe platform, one of the company’s software security products.

McAfee’s LiveSafe program identifies a user by capturing their face and voice with the camera and microphone of any of Intel’s Ultrabook laptops (plus a six-digit PIN for non-Ultrabooks) to enable access to the user’s cloud storage.

Intel is planning to expand its biometric security offerings to different industries later this year, starting with the higher education market.

Source: For more infomation on Intel’s plans and to read the full article – click here

Flexible Working—Rights Extended to all Employees

        

A right to request flexible working already applies to carers and parents with children under the age of 17, but this will be extended to all workers who have 26 weeks’ continuous service from 1st July 2014.

Employers will be obliged to consider all requests in a reasonable manner and ACAS has  published a good practice guidance designed to help employers to handle flexible working requests.   The ACAS guidance includes a stipulation that any request must be made in writing by the employee that the employer is required to discuss the request with the employee and the consideration process must be completed within three months of the employee’s request being submitted.

Source: For more information – visit the website

Be part of our LinkedIn community

If you haven’t joined already – what are you waiting for?

ISO news, training updates and offers, meet the ISO QSL team and connect with other like-minded individuals

Visit us at:  ISO QSL LinkedIn Company page

Networking events and seminars we are attending in June – July 2014

How to make the most of your membership – Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce

Date of Event 09/07/14

Cost:

Members – Free

Non-members – £10.00

Time: 09.30 – 11.30

Venue: Chamber House, 75 Harborne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 3DH

Website

Event Description

Being a Chamber member provides you with lots of opportunity to network, raise your business profile and help you gain greater knowledge and skills which can give your business differentiation and a real advantage. This event gives delegates the chance to understand more about the products, services and benefits membership can bring your business and how to use these effectively to help develop and grow your business.

Refer a friend…

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…why not refer a friend?

Receive a free case of wine or a £50 Marks & Spencer’s Voucher…..the choice is yours!

(To qualify for this you must refer a successful lead).

To offer your referrals please contact – admin@isoqsltd.com or call 01905 670 303