How Can You Get the Most from Your ISO 9001:2008 Certification?

Lots of people think that the ISO 9001 certification is just a process which puts documents together to show an\the auditor in order to get a certification. This is a popular misunderstanding. Those people who have worked with ISO for several years remember earlier versions of the ISO standard that needed inordinate documentation with not much focus on real results. A lot of managers and business owners considered this just a basic overhead expenditure to the company with no measurable benefit.

More current revisions of the standard have restructured the requirements to focus more on improving business processes and have less focus on putting documents together for the advantage of an auditor. The outcome is that achievements of certified businesses these days have a great effect and a lot of shareholders, employees, clients and even the top management see this. Now, both the business and customer needs of a company are being improved with this new “Process Approach”.

Through working with dozens of companies every year in achieving ISO 9001 certification since 2000, our consultants have used three basic guidelines for implementing ISO in order to attain meaningful, measurable results from the investment:

Companies that implement ISO for the first time make it too complex and this is a common mistake. As an outcome, there are procedures, records and job training that are truly not necessary. The “better be safe than sorry” approach is applied since those who implement the system do not really know what auditors look for. Browsing To compare iso 9000 likely provides lessons you can tell your father. Besides adding to the current ISO certification expense, this will also not add any value to the company.

That is why focus must be more on those specifically required by both the company and the standard and less on the documents.

The next rule to implement is to focus on improving the company’s procedures in order to improve performance for the customers and the business. This means that everything that is implemented must be scrutinized to be sure it is aligned with your company’s operations and the needs of your clients. Browse here at iso 9000 to study how to ponder this hypothesis. Companies could modify their QMS to particularly meet their requirements and still comply with the certification’s intention because the ISO standard utilize general language.

You should first find out if a particular requirement you are working with is helping your company.

The third guideline is based on an understanding that the worst reason to implement anything is only to show it to an auditor. You should apply guidelines one and two if while talking about an ISO requirement you say that you have implemented something to show the auditor. You can develop and implement a system that would suit and add value to your business because ISO requirements are flexible. Be certain to review your ISO procedures and documentation with an eye on keeping it simple and adding business value. It is essential to do so if you want the auditor to be satisfied..