ISO 9000 Certification and Benefits
Posted by admin on May 19th, 2012
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. Since the ISO is the world’s largest developer of standards, it would be beneficial to follow these standards. What is ISO 9000? ISO’s quality management systems QMS standard is called ISO 9000, which is actually a group of standards. 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. The importance of customer service and meeting quality requirements are characteristics of a company that is ISO 9000 certified. It provides a set of rules that have been followed time and again successfully to manage organizational processes to turn out a successful end product. The standard describes what requirements for quality a company must meet to be effective. An organization can conduct self-audits or checks on itself to ensure that ISO 9000′s steps to success are working or it can obtain someone from outside the organization to perform an audit, or even a client. ISO 9000 Principles ISO 9000 is based on eight fundamental principles. The first is based on customer satisfaction. Improved resource utilization increases efficiency and customer satisfaction. Leadership importance makes up the second principle. Leadership merges the processes and people so that the production cycle is streamlined. The third principle involves the people who make up a company. Everyone in the organization needs to feel they own their position and are able to freely talk about any issues they may be having. This can lead to improvements because of communications with the people who are actually doing the work. Process approach is the fourth principle. The cycles of manufacturing a product have to be made into a consistent process. Better process efficiency leads to increased speed and more cost effectiveness. The fifth principle builds upon the fourth, taking the processes and building them into one large system. All processes that have a common end result should act as one. This will build consistency and better efficiency in production. Principle six is improvement continuation. Nothing will be achieved instantaneously. Goals should be set in order to achieve Continual Process Improvement. The seventh principle is to focus on facts when making decisions. Decisions should be made based on analyzed information. The final principle is to have a mutually advantageous relationship with suppliers. This aids in ordering speed and cost containment. Taking these principles in order will help an organization streamline its processes. Advantages 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, turnkey product manufacturing and contract metal manufacturing, since it has a reputation for quality. Customers will know that they are the focus of a business if it is ISO 9000 certified. Some clients may not even consider doing business with a company that is not ISO 9000 certified. ISO 9000 compliance can oftentimes be attributed to an increase in sales. Having better access to markets internationally is another attraction of the standard’s adoption. Improved efficiency since all processes are documented can occur. Employees 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.
