The ISO 9001 standard details the requirements for quality management systems. Our consultants can help you develop the requisite internal quality standards and achieve ISO 9001 certification.
The standard requires the presentation of an organisational structure with the roles and responsibilities of individuals clearly defined. The standard also requires an explanation of how information within the organisation is controlled and managed. It also requires descriptions of how other key resources such as staff and equipment are effectively managed. Furthermore, the standard requires organisations to convey how they manage their operational processes, that they have effective systems for monitoring, checking and correcting problems and that they have systems in place to continuously improve their operations.
Meeting the requirements of this standard
There are various clauses in this standard which must be met and a requirement to retain relevant documented information. Consequently, companies pursuing ISO certification will need to produce the documented evidence in different forms such as the “Management Review”, “Internal Audits” and a “Quality Policy”.
We do not start you from a blank page. We bring a complete, ready-built library of management system documentation with us. Policies, procedures, registers, risk assessments, audit checklists and training material, already mapped to the clauses of ISO 9001. That material is then tailored to the way your business actually runs, rather than your business being reshaped to fit a template. It is the single biggest reason a fixed-price engagement can hold to a predictable timescale: the writing is largely done, so the work is in adapting it, implementing it and building the evidence.
See our ISO consultancy service for how onsite and remote delivery works, or our system implementation service for what the build stage involves.
How ISO 9001 certification works
We take you all the way to ISO 9001 certification, and certification is guaranteed, backed by a 100% success rate. We build the management system around the way your business already works, support you through your internal audit and management review so your team owns them, and close out anything an assessor would otherwise raise before the audit rather than after it.
The system we leave you with is integrated and meant to be used. It should not add workload or complexity to how you already run, and if it does then it has been built wrong. By the time the assessor arrives your people know the system and can answer for it, because it is theirs.
It is a fixed price, agreed before we start, with payment by milestones or monthly instalments. Consultancy clients also get our ISO and legal update service at no extra cost, so the system does not quietly go out of date once we have finished.
We help you choose the right certification body too, based on an objective review of what you actually need rather than who we happen to know: whether accreditation is required by your customers and tenders, what the full three-year cycle costs, and how quickly a body can realistically get an assessor to you. Lead times vary far more than prices do. Our guide to choosing a certification body works through all three.
Benefits of ISO 9001 Certification
There are many benefits to acquiring ISO 9001 certification and these include: –
- Achieve better scores in pre-qualification questionnaires (PQQ’s)
- Improved management of suppliers and outsourced services
- Improved relations with suppliers/ other interested parties
- Ensures that staff training/ competency/ licenses are managed correctly
- Ensures that equipment, maintenance, facilities, and calibration is managed correctly