What is ISO - International standards organization is a worldwide federation of national standard bodies.
ISO 9001:2015 specifies the requirements for a quality management system where an organization
- Needs to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide product and service that meets customer and applicable regulatory requirements and
- Aims to enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system, including processes for continual improvement of the system and the assurance of conformity to customer and applicable requirements.
The adoption of the Quality Management System is a strategic direction for an organization that can help to improve its overall performance and provide a sound basis for sustainable initiatives.
Currently there are over 2 million companies in 170 countries worldwide that are certified to ISO 9001, following are some benefits of being certified
Improved consistency of service and product service performance
Higher customer satisfaction levels
Improved customer perception
Improved product and service effectivity and efficiency
Cost reductions
Improved communications, morale and job satisfaction
Competitive advantage and increased marketing and sales opportunities
The latest version of the Quality Management Standard is ISO 9001:2015 and is based on 7 management principals. They form the conceptual foundation for the ISO portfolio of quality management standards and were used to guide the development of the standard.
These principals were chosen because they can be used to enhance corporate performance and to achieve sustained success.
The 7 principals and a sort description
Focus on customers and interested parties - In order to enhance corporate performance and achieve sustained success, organizations must focus on both their customers and interested parties. Organizations can establish this focus by trying to understand the current and future requirements and expectations of both their customers and their interested parties and by constantly trying to meet these requirements and exceed these expectations.
Provide leadership for your organization - In order to enhance corporate performance and achieve sustained success, organizations on levels must ensure that suitable leadership is provided at all levels. Suitable leadership is provided whenever leaders at all levels establish a unity of purpose and whenever they create an environment that encourages people to pursue a common direction and achieve a common set of objectives. By establishing a common purpose, leaders can ensure that all strategies, policies, processes and resources are aligned and being used to pursue common direction and to achieve a common set of objectives.
Engage and involve your people - In order to enhance corporate performance and achieve sustained success, organizations must be able to create and deliver value. In order to do so they must have people who are competent, they must enhance their knowledge and skills, and they must manage them effectively by empowering them, by encouraging their involvement and engagement at all levels, and by recognizing their achievements.
Use a process approach - In order to enhance corporate performance and achieve sustained success, organizations must use a process approach to manage their activities. The process approach is a management strategy. When managers use this approach, it means that they manage and control their processes, the interactions between these processes, and the inputs and outputs that these processes together. It also means that they manage these interactions as a system. When this approach is applied to quality management, it means that they manage these interactions as a system (business system). When this approach is applied to quality management, it means that they manage their processes and their process interactions as a coherent quality management system.
Encourage improvement - In order to enhance corporate performance and achieve sustained success, organizations must encourage and support improvement. If they wish to maintain current levels of performance, if they wish to respond to changing conditions, and if they wish to identify, create and exploit new opportunities organizations must establish and sustain an ongoing focus on improvement.
Use evidence to make decisions - In order to enhance corporate performance and achieve sustained success, organizations must establish an evidence - based decision making process. Decision making is evidence-based whenever multiple types of input are gathered from multiple sources, whenever facts are identified, whenever data is analyzed objectively, whenever cause and effect relationships are examined, whenever potential unintended consequences are considered, and whenever all of this is used to make corporate decisions.
Manage your corporate relationships - In order to enhance corporate performance and achieve sustained success, organizations must manage their relationships with suppliers, partners and other interested parties. Relationships must be carefully managed because suppliers, partners and other interested parties can influence corporate performance and undermine corporate success.
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