Iso LA
What makes your business tick?
ISO 9001 Accreditation
One of the greatest selling points that an organisation has is the quality of its goods or services. Many companies pride themselves on their superior quality goods and services and as such market themselves to customers who can afford the superior quality. However, even lower market companies take care to provide good quality goods and services and their customers expect nothing less.
In order to make sure that quality measures are met consistently there should be a quality management system in place. Many organisations have this quality management system in place for internal production only. There is no mention of the quality of the products supplied by the suppliers with which goods and services are manufactured.
This is where ISO 9001 accreditation comes in. ISO 9001 is part of the ISO 9000 series or family and deals directly with the standard for total quality management (TQM) – more specifically the quality management system (QMS).
The objective of ISO 9001 is to make sure that, if implemented effectively, suppliers will provide quality supplies consistently that (1) meets the needs and requirements of the company and (2) are compliant with relevant regulations.
In order to obtain ISO 9001 accreditation, there are several requirements that need to be met:
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The commitment by top management to quality.
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Are the resources adequate?
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Are employees competent?
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What is the process management for production / service delivery / relevant administrative and support processes?
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What is the quality planning?
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The issue of product design.
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There should be a review of incoming goods.
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The purchasing process should be scrutinized.
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The organization should monitor and measure its processes and products.
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Measuring equipment should be calibrated.
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Processes for resolving customer complaints should be put into place.
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There should be preventive and corrective actions in place for all the processes.
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There should be commitment to continuously update and improve the QMS.
These requirements are the basics of the standard and are imperative to meet if the organisation is going to obtain ISO 9001 accreditation. The positive side of this is that the standard does not specify which products or services the organisation can buy, but allows room for the company to define that by itself. ISO 9001 does not which to prescribe actions to the company, but merely wants to assist in putting quality processes in place that will ensure the quality of the goods and services that the organisation has to offer.