Since ISO 9001 certification is proof of your commitment to the quality of your products or services, it becomes a priority for your clients to do business with you. Also, you may find those suppliers trustworthy who are certified with ISO 9001. Thus, ISO 9001 certification is not a mandatory requirement, but it sure is a preferable one. In addition to that, ISO 9001 is also not a legal requirement. In fact, there are many standards, based on ISO 9001, for the implementation of Quality Management systems.
Organizations of any size or sector of operation can apply for ISO 9001 certification. The cost of obtaining this certificate varies from organization to organization, based upon the strength of their workforce, the complexity of their processes, and many other factors. Implementing a QMS on the basis of ISO 9001 may seem like a difficult task, but with proper guidance, it becomes easier, in addition, that, ISO 9001 certification might seem challenging to many, but with an experienced certification body, like UK QAC, the process of certification can be made hassle-free.
ISO 9001 Certification – build a brand value for your business with the world’s most recognized quality management system
→ ISO 9001 certification ensures effective processes that would deliver quality products and services consistently in order to consistently meet the expectations of customers and other stakeholders.
→ ISO 9001:2015 works on a simple phenomenon of (PDCA) Plan, Do, Check and Act, where certificate bodies plans for stakeholders of one’s company that how are they getting affected, all the checks are performed, checks of their physical building/factory, leakages, fire safety, proper working machines, etc. and finally acting on it.
→ UK QAC a trusted worthy provider of various ISO certification services help you increase efficiency, productivity, profit, competition, with better quality products and services plus a more reliable ISO 9001:2015 Quality management system. UK QAC has issued over 12,000 ISO 9001 certifications to clients that have achieved management excellence.
ISO 9001 Certification Principles:
1. Customer focus – ISO 9001 Certification aims to improve for the betterment of the interested parties and customer, this will help one sustain customer, increase customer base, makes sure to communicate their needs and expectation by monitoring throughout the organization
2. Leadership – to achieve quality objectives leaders need to establish unity of purpose which is by aligning its strategy, policies, procedure and resource this will lead to better coordination of the organization’s processes one needs to establish a culture of trust and integrity, provide people with the required resource, training, authority to act with accountability
3. Engagement of people – for efficiency involve people of all levels, this can be done by communicating with the employees their needs in the organization, sharing knowledge, and experience, recognizing people’s contributions, learning, and improvement.
4. Process approach – when activities are understood and then executed then the efficiency of the delivered output will increase, by understanding the organization’s capabilities and determining resource constraints prior to action.
5. Improvement- improvement is important for an organization to maintain the current level of performance and to even keep on developing, this can be done by giving proper training and letting them understand that how does a work happens with that track, review and audit planning, implementation, recognize and acknowledgment, which will result into anticipation of internal and external risks and opportunity, improved process performance.
6. Evidence-based decision making – learn from mistakes, it is simply that decisions should be driven from evaluation of data, this will help one take better efficient solutions adding more, intuitions should never be neglected.
7. Relationship management – manage relations with relevant interested parties such as providers, one can achieve by keeping a well-managed supply chain that provides a stable flow of products and services, determining interested party’s relationship that needs to manage,
PDCA Cycle
✔ Plan – to think that what do we need to achieve in our organization
✔ Do – to execute a planned action which will help us achieve the required objective
✔ Check – monitor against the standards) (policies, objectives, requirements)
✔ Action – finally implementing what has been rechecked.
ISO 9001 Benefits
Boosting the image of your organization – ISO 9001 certification by a credible certification body enhances your reputation in the eyes of customers, clients, and other stakeholders regarding your capabilities to deliver quality products and services.
Meet customer’s expectations – ISO 9001 aims at meeting the requirements as well as expectations of customers in terms of quality. This helps in enhancing your customer base as well as retaining your old customers.
Integration of processes – the High-Level Structure of ISO 9001 enables the integration of various management systems within the organization. This helps in recognizing the area of improvement as well as resource conservation within your organization.
Evidence-based decision making – The key to an effective QMS lies in evidence-based decision-making that can take into consideration the identified risks and ensure appropriate action for an efficient QMS.
Continual improvement – the culture of continual improvement in your organization enables your staff in improving the processes that they are directly responsible for. This helps in saving a good amount of time, costs, and other resources.
Involvement of the workforce – Who the framework of ISO 9001 ensures the engagement of the entire workforce for the betterment of the processes that keeps them motivated, which ultimately benefits your business.
ISO 9001 Requirements
The structure of ISO 9001 consists of 10 sections, out of which the first three are introductory in nature, whereas the last seven specifies the requirements of QMS, against which ISO 9001 certification performed.
Clause 4: Context of the organization – This section deals with understanding the uniqueness of your organization and customizing ISO 9001 in order to implement a QMS that is most suitable for you.
Clause 5: Leadership – It underlines the importance of top management in the implementation of QMS by proper risk assessment, planning actions, and assigning roles and responsibilities to the relevant staff.
Clause 6: Planning – through analysis of the risks and opportunities, the top management is expected to design a plan that enlists the quality objectives for your organization.
Clause 7: Support – It points out all the resources, such as human resources, infrastructure, and others that are required for an effective QMS. This section also deals with the requirements around competence, awareness, communication, and controlling documented information.
Clause 8: Operation – this section deals with the execution part of the planning for QMS. It includes product requirements review, keeping a check on external providers, reviewing the product before release, and so on.
Clause 9: Performance evaluation – This section deals with the ways by which you can ensure the effective functioning of your QMS. It involves regular management reviews, monitoring and measurement techniques, etc.
Clause 10: Improvement – this section ensures that your QMS is upgraded and able to meet the current market requirements. It involves regular reviews to identify gaps and performing corrective actions to close those gaps for continual improvement
ISO 9001 Process
1. Gap Analysis
-Understand the prerequisites of ISO standards by analyzing each clause thoroughly.
-Analyze your system for any shortcomings.
-You may take help from any ISO consultant to get you through this stage.
2. Implementation
-Prepare the required documents, records, and policies
-Perform internal audits and management review to understand gaps and practical realties
-Perform corrective actions to confirm conformities
3. Certification
-Fill the application form provided by the certification body
-Invite the auditors from the certification body for audit and certification
-Get your management system ISO certified.
Stage One (documentation review) – At this stage, the auditors from the certification body verifies that your documentation meets the requirements of ISO 9001.
Stage Two (main audit) – In this stage, the realities of your processes are matched with your statements in the documentation for their compliance to the requirements of ISO 9001 standard.
the certification process goes further. Click here to view the next steps to the ISO certification process
Make Sure
Quality manual procedures need to be preferably performed by the company, noncompliance of procedure can result in losing the certificate (quality manual is different form system procedure can be given to the customer on demand)
Work instruction manual includes step by step carrying out of procedures, forms, quality records, specification, master lists, need to be properly maintained and if not it may become a major problem in ISO 9001 implementation
Quality management principles is a comprehensive and fundamental rule/belief, of leading grand operations of an organization, aimed at consciously improving performance over the long term by focusing on customers while addressing the needs of all other stakeholders