A START TO ISO 9001
Some people look at an ISO 9001 quality management system as a great tool to advance their company while others view the standard to be burdensome and a hindrance to their business. In many cases, your view comes down to your past experience or rumors you’ve heard throughout the industry.
In too many cases, ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems are often put in place to simply satisfy the requirements of the standard. Businesses look at their business and the standard requirements as two separate things and try to keep them that way so that the standard requirements do not impact their business.
Let’s look at this a different way, the way ISO 9001 was meant to be.
An ISO 9001 Quality Management System should be the framework of your business. The Foundation of your business. The problem is that many people have pre-established notions of how an ISO 9001 system should look. But this view does not work for every company. Each company should establish an ISO 9001 system that is unique to them and works with their business, not against it.
So what is an ISO 9001 Quality Management System?
It’s the foundation of how you:
- Identify your business risks
- Put controls in place to ensure you have a repeatable outcome
- Ensure employees are aware of their responsibilities
- Find ways to continually improve your business
How you do that while meeting the ISO 9001 standard requirements is completely up to you.
Don’t let the stigma of ISO 9001 certification stop you from growing your business. Get the industry recognition for having a quality business that will take your business to the next level.
It is often assumed that ISO 9001 is primarily for the manufacturing industry. That is definitely an industry that commonly obtains ISO 9001 certification, but it is by no means the only industry. ISO 9001 can be used by any organization, large or small, regardless of its field of activity or its industry.
ISO 9001 has been implemented by over one million companies and organizations in over 170 countries.
When it comes to ISO 9001, we don’t consider ourselves quality consultants as much as we consider ourselves business consultants.
The ISO 9001 standard is based on a number of quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach and continual improvement. ISO 9001 helps ensure that customers get consistent, good quality products and services, which in turn brings many business benefits.