ISO 9001 Management Standard – What is it?

ISO 9001 is an international management standard created and published by ‘ISO’, otherwise known as the International Standards Organisation. According to ISO…

“A ‘Standard’ is a document that provides requirements, specifications, guidelines or characteristics that can be used consistently to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose”.

In simple terms, a management standard is a document that sets out the current operational parameters for successfully and effectively managing a business. In response to the requirements of the system, you align your own business systems to meet those requirements. Thus, ISO Standards are set systems against which you design your business to improve and develop in a consistent way. Each standard sets the requirements you have to meet to ensure you continuously improve your business.

Getting underway

To get started with an ISO Standard, take a ‘snapshot’ of your business. Next, you set out your organisational goals. Then, from that starting point, you develop simple operating procedures and document them. From there, you now have set your own statement of your current position. That is what you can use to improve upon. Then, as you go along, you check your systems, gather data about them – then make informed decisions upon them. In other words, check what you are doing, improve it, check again, make further improvements. Consequently, you get into a cycle of improvement.

The core of a business is management

Most ISO Standards relate to technical product compliance. However, the most popular standards have proved to be the management-related standards. After all, they are at the core of creating an effective business. Good management sets the tone for improvement in all other aspects of the business.  So, the most important ISO standards work toward good, consistent management. The most widely recognised management standard is ISO 9001. There are over 1 million organisations worldwide certified to that Standard.

Constant vigilance to achieve ISO 9001

The ISO 9001 title is “Quality management systems – Requirements”. That Standard can be used by your own Organisation, and external parties, to monitor and raise your own standard of management. From the outset you have a set of documents you have written that tell everyone, “This is how we do things here”. That means, your personnel work with your ISO 9001 documents to check compliance with the requirements. If you do, you will also comply with the need to check your own operation and to improve it when problems arise. This is a great benefit to your business because you gradually, progressively and consistently sort out glitches, customer problems and operational issues.

These glitches and other issues are faced by every growing business. However, ISO 9001 shows you how your systems can get past those problems to achieve further growth. You constantly look for problems and possible improvements as a requirement of the ISO 9001 Standard. The search for problems is a part of the Standard called Auditing. More on that later. Subsequently, after setting up audits, you can expect a return on your investment in your management system as you fix the glitches and get better at what you do.

ISO 9001 external assessment and certification

Another important aspect of the system is independent monitoring. Your ISO 9001 documentation provides you with your identified standards. However, it also enables external parties to be able to come in and check you are doing what you say you are doing. That is really useful in two ways. First, it enables you to prove to customers that you have safe, reliable, consistent and effective management showing continuous improvement. Secondly, it provides a way for external assessors to be able to check you meet the international standard itself, and to point out problems to help you improve. That cross-check makes your business comparable with other businesses globally.

External Assessors come from Certification Bodies. They assess the Organisation’s ability to meet the customer, statutory and regulatory requirements applicable to its products and/or, services as well as the organisations own requirements. Certification Bodies, in fact, also award the ISO 9001 Certificate. So, the external assessors are able to provide the certificate that shows your customers that you are quality organisation which aims to continuously improve.