Although no company needs certification to ISO Standards to operate, it is something every company should endeavour to obtain. Many organisations, large or small, regardless of their sector find that they have a greater chance of securing contracts and winning tenders if they are certified.
Why is this?
ISO 9001 Quality Management System is a standard used by organisations to demonstrate their ability to consistently provide products and services that meet regulatory and customer requirements and to show continuous improvement.
A company with a strong commitment to quality that can demonstrate its progress has the power to attract new national and international business.
'ISO 9001 certified' means that an organisation has met the requirements within ISO 9001.
Will our business benefit from ISO 9001?
ISO 9001 certification benefits:
- Improve efficiency, reduce waste and save money
- Meet customer requirements
- Improve the consistency of your operations
- Achieve international quality recognition
- Improved customer retention and acquisition
- Provide consistent outcomes that can be measured and monitored
- Identify any gaps in the processes.
- Positively stand out from competitors
Checking that the systems and processes work is a vital part of ISO 9001 and an organisation performs internal audits to check how its quality management system is working. Your business can do this by training staff to be internal auditors, or, like the majority of our customers they may decide to outsource Internal audits to a specialist consultancy such as ourselves at QHSE ABERDEEN https://www.qhseaberdeen.com/
Most of our customers start out by enquiring about the process, duration and costs of gaining ISO certification. This comes about due to the fact they have heard how it can streamline the business and perhaps they have been asked if they have a certain ISO certification during a tendering process.
Depending on the size of the organisation and what they already have in place, it can take on average two to three weeks to develop and implement a QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM - ISO 9001 from scratch. Our consultants work closely with our customer to develop the bespoke ISO 9001 QMS. Our clients may choose to be hands on or off depending on their time restraints etc. with some of our customer base who like to completely outsource their QHSE systems to ourselves, freeing their time for what they do best, only checking in now and again and of course chairing the management meetings etc.
We always advise our customers to go for a UKAS accredited certification body, the terms ‘accreditation’ and ‘certification’ are often used in the wrong context. Only certification bodies can refer to themselves as being ‘accredited’, whereas the organisations successfully audited by certification bodies hold ‘certification’. i.e. QHSE ABERDEEN are certified for ISO 9001 by SGS who are a UKAS accredited certification body
“Certification is an audit of whether an organisation, product or individual, conforms to the criteria laid out in a recognised standard or scheme, such as ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems”. (credit - UKAS https://www.ukas.com/accreditation/about/accreditation-vs-certification/)
We understand that ISO 9001 may appear daunting. Our qualified consultants are here to make sure that the process is as smooth as possible and that you gain maximum benefits. This standard provides senior management with an efficient and effective Quality Management System.
I hope this insight into ISO 9001 Quality Management system has proved to be beneficial and encouraged you to look further into gaining an ISO certification to grow your business.
I picked the QUALITY ISO 9001 Standard as it is the most popular and generally the easiest for organisations to implement and follow. There are many ISO Standards:
Quality Management Standard ISO 9001 to help work more efficiently, promotes process performance and effectiveness, and continual improvement.
Environmental Management Standard ISO 14001 to help reduce an organisations negative impact on the environment and be more sustainable.
Health and Safety Standard ISO 45001 to make workplaces safer and healthier for all.
Energy Management Standard ISO 50001 provides a practical way to improve energy use,.
Food Safety Standard ISO 22000 to help prevent food from being contaminated and ensure safe for consumption.
Information Security Standard ISO 27001 to help keep sensitive information secure. This is not an IT standard, instead ISO 27001 uses a holistic process approach to managing information security across your business.