ISO standards are developed and published by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) with an objective to bring about excellence in quality & business management of an organization.
Certification against an ISO standard is merely a third-party endorsement of the implementation; certification is not mandatory and in-fact it is just an option.
ISO 9001:2015 helps the organization to develop a management system with process approach and achieve desired results through continual improvement.
What are the benefits of ISO 9001:2015 standard and its implementation?
ISO 9001 is a standard that sets out the requirements for a quality management system. Get an overview of ISO 9001 in this powerpoint presentation. Vektors clients that embraced ISO 9001 gained benefits from the customised consulting solutions:
- 76% identified and effectively addressed risks and opportunities
- 60% effectively improved upon process approach
- 50% improved upon their customer’s satisfaction
ISO 9001:2015 implementation delivers following key benefits:
Process Approach
A process which is a set of interrelated or interacting activities that use inputs to deliver an intended result. Please note that Inputs and outputs may be tangible (e.g. materials, components or equipment) or intangible (e.g. data, information or knowledge).
The process approach includes establishing the organization’s processes to operate as an integrated and complete system.
- The management system integrates processes and measures to meet objectives
- Processes define interrelated activities and checks, to deliver intended outputs
- Detailed planning and controls can be defined and documented as needed, depending on the organization’s context.
Risk & opportunity management
The use of risk and opportunity management with in your management system reinforces its use as a management tool to identify and address organizational risks & opportunities.
Risk‐based thinking, PDCA and the process approach are three concepts together form an integral part of the ISO 9001:2015 standard. Risks that may impact on objectives and results, must be addressed by the management system. Risk‐based thinking is used throughout the process approach to:
- Decide how risk (positive or negative) is addressed in establishing the processes to improve process outputs and prevent undesirable results
- Define the extent of process planning and controls needed (based on risk)
- improve the effectiveness of the quality management system
- maintain and manage a system that inherently addresses risk and meets objectives
PDCA is a tool that shall be used to manage processes and systems.
PDCA stands for the followings:
P Plan: set the objectives of the system and processes to deliver results (“What to do” and “how to do it”)
D Do: implement and control what was planned
C Check: monitor and measure processes and results against policies, objectives and requirements and report results
A Act: take actions to improve the performance of processes
PDCA operates as a cycle of continual improvement, with risk‐based thinking at each stage.
Expand into new markets
Implementation of ISO standards helps manufacturers retain their customers and expand into new markets. ISO develops standards that are internationally recognised. The implementation helps organization to provide factual information regarding internal quality inspections, raw material inspections, supplier control and control over other business processes to their customers. It helps organizations to take informed decisions, reduce managerial policing and gives top management more time for business expansion.
Evidence based decision making
Informed decision is an important tool for organizational business excellence. The second quality management principle of ISO 9001 is the need to use evidence-based decision making. By driving your decisions based on the evidence, rather than on ‘gut feelings’, you can be more focused on applying resources to the areas that will improve efficiencies and increase cost savings with less trial and error to find the right decision. In addition, by monitoring the process you are improving, you will be able to see how much improvement has happened based on the data.
Improvement of customer satisfaction
One of the quality management principles that are the foundation of the ISO 9001 requirements is to continually improve customer satisfaction by planning for and striving to, meeting customer requirements and perception. By improving customer satisfaction organization will retain more repeat customers since happy and satisfied customers are the key to the business existence itself as well as keeping customer loyalty. Customer loyalty bring in additional revenues.
leadership engagement
Implementation of ISO standards helps an organization to engage the process leaders to continually improve upon the management system and effectively control the business process to achieve desired results.
