ISO 9000 Certification and Benefits
The International Organization for Standards, or ISO, is well-known for producing international standards. The ISO is made up of standards institutes from 163 countries. It can help a company to adopt ISO standards since the ISO is the world’s biggest producer of standards.
What is ISO 9000?
ISO 9000 is a group of standards from ISO for quality management systems (QMS). This standard can be used in any type of business but started out focusing on manufacturing organizations. Being ISO 9000 certified will show that a company values high quality standards and will help draw clients internationally since the standards are known worldwide.
ISO 9000 certification means that a company can meet requirements related to the quality of a product and also customer service. It provides a set of rules that have been followed time and again successfully to manage the various processes of an organization to turn out a successful product. The standard describes what requirements for quality a company must adhere to in order to be effective. To ensure ISO 9000’s success, audits can be conducted internally by a company or by outside sources or clients.
ISO 9000 Principles
Eight principles make up ISO 9000. The first is based on customer satisfaction. Being able to better utilize the resources available at a company improves efficiency and therefore customer satisfaction. The second principle recognizes how important leadership is in an organization. Leadership merges the processes and people so that the production cycle is streamlined. The third principle involves people in the organization. Everyone in the organization needs to have job ownership and be able to talk about any issue or questions they may have. Communicating with those performing the work can lead to process improvements.
Process approach is the fourth principle. A consistent process needs to be developed out of the cycles of product manufacturing. Better process efficiency leads to increased speed and more cost effectiveness. The fifth principle builds upon the fourth, a large system is built out of all the smaller processes. All processes that have a common end result should act as one. Production efficiency and consistency will result. Principle six is to continue to improve. Nothing will be achieved instantaneously. Goals should be set in order to achieve Continual Process Improvement. The seventh principle is to make all decisions based on factual information. Decisions should be made based on analyzed information. The final principle is to have a mutually advantageous relationship with suppliers. This aids in speed in ordering and lowering of costs. Taking these principles in order will help an organization streamline its processes.
Benefits of ISO 9000
ISO 9000 adherence will guide a company to improve their quality management systems. Adhering to the standard will help gain business for the company using it since it is so well-known for quality. ISO 9000 certification lets customers know they are a business’ focus. Some clients may not even do business with a company that is not ISO 9000 certified. An increase in sales can oftentimes be attributed to being ISO 9000 compliant. Having better access to markets internationally is another attraction of the standard’s adoption. Improved efficiency since all processes are documented can occur. From increased improvements comes buy-in from employees, who become more involved in the processes and overall quality of the systems and improved communication occursEmployees begin to take ownership of their roles in the company due to the improvements from ISO 9000 adoption, thus becoming more involved in the processes and communications.
Roger Hug is the VP of Sales Engineering of Maloya Laser, leaders in <A href=”http://www.maloyalaser.com/turnkey_products.php”>turnkey product manufacturing</a> and <A href=”http://www.maloyalaser.com/contract_manufacturing.php”>contract metal manufacturing</a> servicing aerospace, scientific, transportation, medical and machinery requirements with Laser Cutting systems.
