ISO 9001 - Quality Management

ISO 9001 Certification has benefited over 1 million companies worldwide, with assisting them to achieve their aims and improving their business. Therefore, in helping them to manage and improve, ISO 9001 prevents fire-fighting and enables business development.

The well established and structured guidance of ISO 9001 results in improved operations, productivity and profitability, with greater control of work processes. In addition, it introduces continuous improvement to management process.

ISO 9001 provides an evidence based decision-making process giving management more control of business direction.

What is ISO 9001?

ISO 9001 is the Quality Management Standard.

Over the last 100 years, there have been many initiatives aimed at quality management and improvements. Unfortunately, they have generally suffered from being:

• Internally driven by a few key personnel, who have limited access to best practice,
• Often focused on manufacturing and leaving out service-oriented business.
• Oriented to large volume activities which justify major investment to achieve improvements, whereas, many organisations employ less than 20 persons.
• Few agreed and documented methods covering all of the activities affecting customer service.
• Emphasis on operational improvements, with little consideration of customer satisfaction or the business objectives.
• Emphasis on product quality, rather than the setting and meeting customer expectations.
• Lack of external assessment as a reality check and incentive for maintaining and improving.

ISO 9001 Addresses Previous Limitations:

• To achieve ISO 9001 Certification, organisations must show commitment to a focused and systematic approach to their business.
• That means a fact-based decision-making process. Working with facts is an important aspect of understanding and controlling work processes and business in general.
• To be successful, businesses must demonstrate both internally (to themselves) and to the external assessor, that the business will comply fully with the requirements of ISO 9001.

Businesses Must Demonstrate They Comply

• A clear focus on understanding and meeting customer requirements.
• Be committed to and work within the established Quality Management Principles.
• Management commitment to quality in all aspects of the business, including the business objectives and risks.
• Effective working systems using a process-based approach.
• That work processes and documentation reflect all applicable laws and regulations, as well as ensuring full compliance.
• Involvement of trained, qualified and competent employees in all work processes.
• That facilities and resources provided throughout the organisation meet the needs of the documented work processes.
• The employees will therefore have a clear work scheme against which to work effectively with records to prove the work processes are appropriate and effective.
• Mutually beneficial supplier relationships promote clear management of supplies and services.
• Where problems arise, employees can quickly identify, investigate and correct them as well as reduce the risk of recurrence.
• Management must monitor the business operations, ensure they meet the ISO 9001 Standard and are aligned with business objectives as well as promote improvements supported by suitable records.
• External independent UKAS accredited assessment provides an external reality check of compliance and improvements in the business.
• On-going surveillance visits occur, at least yearly, by external assessors.

Businesses Need to be Flexible too

Additionally, any ISO 9001 quality system needs to be flexible. The system must enable the business to successfully respond to modern volatile and competitive business environments. For instance, your hosted Per4ma Business Model enables immediate online editing. This will ensure that everyone is working from the latest documents and forms. That requirement applies whether for your employees or for staff externally attached to the company.

Benefits of ISO 9001

1. Competitive: ISO 9001 gives an externally checked confidence that your business is using a documented system to fulfil customer requirements as well as being committed to improve. It also provides assurance to customers that they can depend on consistent quality of service.

2. Operational: ISO 9001 provides a systematic and integrated approach to business management. This logical approach leads to a clear structure of operating processes. Coupled with fact-based decision making you can find problems and overcome them to improve your processes. Unquestionably, an emphasis on continual improvement of working systems will lead you naturally to reduce errors, duplication, complaints and problems. This leads to reduced costs and more efficient use of resources.

3. Resilient: Today we operate in a volatile business environment. Business need to be more resilient than ever. ISO 9001 requires companies to assess the risks to their business and instigate suitable controls and actions to manage those risks. Customers love risk controls!

4. Customer Satisfaction: Customers require assurance that their requirements are met in an orderly and consistent way. Such assurance positively impacts customer relations. Appropriate records and communication with customers will lead to better business outcomes for the customer and the business itself. 

Evidence

• Evidence shows that ISO 9001 implementation costs are an investment.
• Cost advantages and other improvements gained through better methods lead to improved productivity, reduction of waste and better management control.
• Achieving successful assessment and certification assists in retaining existing customers, and in gaining new ones.

Why You Need ISO 9001:

Most organisations face an increasingly demanding business environment:

• Greater legal restraints and regulation impact the organisation.
• Competitors have a greater reach too. Local and home-country business has now transformed into regional or global markets.
• Organisations are under pressure to operate with reduced human resources and tighter fiscal margins.
• Over 20 years of the trend to flatten organisations has resulted in Managers being responsible for a wider scope of activities.
• Often these same managers have had little or no formal training.

However, your business can still improve and move forward despite these difficulties. ISO 9001 provides a clear structure for organisations who want to work smarter:

• Supporting management through evidence based decision-making, continuously improving work processes and better customer satisfaction all add up to a brighter business future.
• Certification offers business growth and a more resilient business.

Charter 4 can help your business improve

Your business or organisation can see great benefit from implementing ISO 9001.

Charter 4 focus on the principle that you can

Improve your business, rather than just comply with the standard.

We work with you on your with ISO 9001  project to ensure your business improves as well as comply to your chosen standard. This unique principle has seen our clients benefit from the business pay-back of investing in Quality Management.

Would you like to know more about how we can help you to improve your business and get your ISO 9001 certification? You can find out more. Simply contact us.