What is ISO9001?
ISO9001 is a quality management standard in the ISO 9000 family of popular standards maintained by the International Organization for Standardization. Continue reading to learn what is ISO9001, or if you are thinking about implementing ISO9001 in your business or organisation, click here for our ISO9001 training service. Call us on 07 3630 5695 or get in touch with us online now for help with ISO9001 and HR consulting Brisbane wide.
What is ISO9001 in Simple Terms?
In an essence, ISO9001 explained is an international standard for delivery of quality in business. Implementing ISO 9001 processes helps businesses to continuously deliver the highest quality of services and products that always meet the expectations of clients and customers.
ISO9001 Explained in More Detail
ISO 9001 aims to provide a framework to help businesses reliably meet the needs and requirements of clients, customers and stakeholders. ISO 9001 as a standard, requires certification, by a Third Party Certifying Body. , Certification is achieved when a an organisation demonstrates an ability to satisfy the ISO 9001 requirements for a functioning quality management system.
ISO9001 explained in more detailis a set of clauses that outline the requirements for certification. There are ten clauses defined for ISO 9001, but only seven (sections four through ten) are audited and need to be demonstrated. Those are:
- Context of the Organization – defining business goals and objectives and external expectations to align them with the quality management system.
- Leadership – clearly outlining the parties responsible and the scope of their responsibility for the quality policy being established.
- Planning – planning for both opportunities as well as risks and contingencies the organisation may be expected to encounter and face.
- Support – resources supporting the system, from developing documentation to ensuring employee awareness.
- Operation – planning of quality control procedures.
- Performance Evaluation – ongoing monitoring and review of the quality management system in operation.
- Improvement – identifying opportunities for ongoing improvement of the system.
What is the Current ISO 9001 Standard?
The current version of the ISO9001 standard is 9001:2015. It is the latest revision of the standard originally published in the first edition in 1987 and revised several times in 1994 (first minor revision), 2000 (first major revision), 2008 (second minor revision) and most recently in 2015 (second major revision). The nine main changes between the 2008 revision and the 2015 revision of ISO 9001 were:
- An increase from 8 clauses to 10 – the auditable clauses four through ten have been restructured to follow a “Plan, Do, Check, Act” formula.
- Implementation of the New High Level Structure Guidelines – an improved way of formatting and using terminology consistently to deliver better clarity and more efficiency to the standard.
- Changes to terminology and definitions – with the aim to make ISO 9001 easier to understand while making it applicable to every business in any industry, anywhere in the world.
- A shift to a process-based approach to quality control – a move to understanding a company or an organisation as a system of interoperating processes.
- Increased focus on input and output – aiming to focus on what effort or materials are responsible for which outcomes.
- Increased focus on risk-based thinking – to increase awareness of possible contingencies that may be either risks or opportunities.
- Increased focused on the context of the organisation – aiming to better account for a company’s position in a broader field; its strengths, its weaknesses, threats and opportunities as well as the presence of interested parties.
- An emphasis on leadership committed to the quality management system – with the intention of increasing the executive accountability for the delivery of quality business outcomes.
- Improved integration with other ISO standards – a shift towards making ISO 9001 a more viable baseline foundation for the implementation of other ISO standards.
We hope that you have found our explanation of what is ISO9001 helpful. Are you considering becoming ISO 9001 certified? If so, get started with ISO9001 training from Bramwell Partners. Call us on (07) 3260 5695, e-mail us on firstname.lastname@example.org or send us an online message to learn more.