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What is ISO 9001?

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ISO 9001 is the international standard for Quality Management Systems (QMS), published by ISO (the International Organization for Standardization). The standard was most recently updated in 2015 and is referred to as ISO 9001:2015.

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ISO 9001 is a Quality Management System, which is often referred to as a QMS. It includes collection of policies, processes, documented procedures, and records. This collection of documentation defines the set of organizational rules that will govern how your company creates and delivers the product or service to customers. Generally, the QMS tailored as per company requirements and the product or service provided, but the ISO 9001 standard provides a set of guidelines to help make sure that you do not miss any important elements.

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What is the importance of ISO 9001?

 

Being ISO 9001:2015 an internationally recognized standard, it is intended to be used by organizations of any size or industry and can be used by any company. As an international standard, it is recognized as the basis for any company to create a system to ensure customer satisfaction and improvement. Many companies demand this system as the minimum requirement for an organization to be a supplier in today’s business scenario.

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Because you are timely reviewing/ auditing your processes, as well as having a certification body audit them, your customers themselves do not need to audit your company. It is because of this that ISO 9001 has become a necessity for many companies to compete in the market.

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In addition, your customers will be reassured that you have established a Quality Management System based on the seven quality management principles of ISO 9001.

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In fact, ISO 9001 is such a fundamental and influential standard that it is used as the basis when industry groups want to add specific industry requirements, thus creating their own industry standard; this includes AS9100 for the aerospace industry, ISO 13485 for the medical devices industry and AITF 16949 for the automotive industry.

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Benefits of Implementing ISO 9001

 

Many used and continually using this standard to great effect in discovering and securing tremendous cost and efficiency savings. Here are just a few of these benefits:

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1. Improve brand image and credibility – When customer see that you are certified by a recognized certification body, they will understand that you have implemented a system that is focused on meeting customer requirements and improvement. This improves their trust that you will deliver what you have promised.

2. Improved customer satisfaction – One of the key principles of the ISO 9001 QMS is the focus on improving customer satisfaction by identifying and meeting customer requirements and needs. By improving satisfaction, you improve repeat customer business.

3. Fully integrated processes – By using the process approach of ISO 9001, you not only look at the individual processes in your organization, but also at the interactions of those processes. By doing this, you can more easily find areas for improvement and resource savings within your organization.

4. Fact-based decision making – Ensuring that you are making decisions based on good evidence is a key to the success of ISO 9001 QMS. By ensuring that your decisions are based on good evidence, you can handle issues professionally, quickly correct problems and improve your organizational efficiency and effectiveness.

5. Culture of continual improvement – With continual improvement as the main output of the QMS, you can attain ever-increasing gains in savings of time, money, and other resources. By making this the culture of your company, you can focus your workforce on improving the processes they are directly responsible for.

6. Engage your people – Who better than the people working within a process to help find the best solutions for improving that process? By focusing your workforce on not only managing, but also improving the processes, they will be more engaged in the outcome of the organization.​

 

 

what are the steps to Implement ISO 9001?

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It is always recommended to start any system implementation only after getting its working knowledge/ Familiarization with it. Please consult HM Consulting team for more details and support related to ISO 9001 awareness training.

 

1. Prepare documentation – After finishing all applicable documentation and implementing it, HM consulting recommend an organization should also perform following steps to ensure a successful certification:

2. Internal audit – The internal audit is the only activity to check your QMS implementation. The goal is to ensure that records are in place to confirm compliance of the processes and to find problems and weaknesses that would otherwise stay hidden. Please contact HM Consulting team for support on Internal audit.

3. Management review – A formal review by your management to evaluate the relevant facts about the management system processes to make appropriate decisions and assign resources.

4. Corrective actions – Following the internal audit and management review, you need to correct the root cause of any identified problems and document how they were resolved.

5. Certification Audit: The company certification process is divided into two stages:

I. Stage One (documentation review) – The auditors from your chosen certification body will check to ensure your documentation meets the requirements of ISO 9001.

 

II. Stage Two (Final Assessment) – At this stage, the certification body auditors will check whether your actual activities are compliant with both ISO 9001 and your own documentation by reviewing documents, records, and company practices. Defiantly this audit will be harder than the previous one. Best wishes! You may consider HM Consulting’s Extended Support.

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Get in touch with us for more information on ISO 9001:2015 Implementation.