How Organizations Can Benefit from ISO 9001 Standards Integration (Demo)

To many businesses, ISO 9001 standards are just that, standards—a set of guidelines toward which the organization aspires toward. However, as discussed in an article on Quality Digest, organizations that integrate the spirit of those standards right into the way they do business stand to benefit greatly from them.   The article, The Process Approach to ISO 9001, discusses how organizations can review their quality management systems and focus them away from basic compliance toward a mentality set entirely on improvement. It describes a system for breaking down the entire business into smaller processes, which have a definite input and output, and identifying four key aspects of each process:

• Infrastructure: The process equipment, software and hardware, and other supporting services.

• Human Resources: The education, knowledge, skills, training and experience of the workforce.

• Documentation: The process maps, procedures, instructions, forms and methods detailing how to complete the process.

• Process Monitoring: The measurement criteria for assessing the effectiveness of the process in supporting the business plan.

The article then notes that useful information can be produced from the assessment of these four key aspects to create SWOT analyses that can be understood by senior management. Senior management can, in turn, more effectively decide on measures to bolster strengths, address weaknesses, exploit opportunities, and eliminate threats to the process. This then allows for continual improvements that affect both the organization and its customers, which enhances the company’s ability to be competitive in its target market. When applied in this way, the 9001 ISO requirements stop being a burden to businesses, and instead become a game plan for success. It also makes the certification process go more smoothly, because companies no longer need to “invent” the paperwork needed to show compliance when certification companies like International Standard Authority come over to assess them. Instead, that documentation, which is created as part of day-to-day business activities, can readily be sourced as soon as it is needed. The benefits of intrinsically integrating 9001 standards into the organization are clear. What remains is for organizations to take a serious look at these benefits and ask themselves, “Do we really want to improve our business and the quality of our end products?” and “Do we want to find areas for improvement that will result in better performance and allow us to dominate our competition?” (Source: The Process Approach to ISO 9001, Quality Digest, April 2, 2014)