ISO 9000 is a standard created to make the attainment of quality, consistent products easier....
This post is written by Heather Powell Account Manager for SafeSourcing.
ISO 9000 is a standard created to make the attainment of quality, consistent products easier by providing specific steps for development of an organization’s quality management system. This quality management system is meant to monitor the progress of a product or service as it goes through each stage of production, from development to testing to assembly to customer feedback.
One cornerstone of ISO 9000 is continual improvement. No company should ever be satisfied with the conditions of a process at the given moment; they should always be looking for ways to make these processes more efficient and effective. ISO 9000 was written with the business world’s insatiable desire for excellence in mind. This is why continual improvement is a requirement of the standard – to inspire progress and the pursuit of perfection.
ISO 9000 is an internationally recognized standard, and that may seem daunting for some smaller businesses. How are they going to implement the same standard adopted by multi-national corporations? Quite easily, actually. ISO 9000 is a flexible standard that lays down requirements for an organization to follow, but allows the organization to fulfill these requirements any way they choose. This increases ISO 9000′s scope of effectiveness, allowing a wide range of companies to create quality management systems that match their needs.
ISO 9000 is seen in every sector of the business world, and its success is a testament to its worth. With a focus on customer satisfaction, products and services improve and flourish under ISO 9000′s quality management system. With a combination of continual improvement and corrective actions – tenets of ISO 9000 – a business will create processes that run smoothly and efficiently.
Is there another ISO methods? Yes!
There are many reasons to become certified to the Business Continuity Management standard, ISO 22301 and they all amount to the same thing – it gives you a competitive advantage.
Certification helps you to demonstrate to your stakeholders that your business is run effectively and that it will continue to do so in the event of a disruption. The process of achieving and maintaining the Business Continuity Management (BCM) certification also helps ensure that you are continually improving and refining your BCM activities. The regular assessment process will also improve staff responsibility, commitment and motivation.
Certification improves overall performance, removes uncertainty and widens market opportunities. It will prove to your customers that you can be trusted to deliver. Certification to ISO 22301 creates an opportunity to reduce the burdens of internal and external audits from your key customers.
Despite all these internal reasons, the reason for many companies will be that a major customer requires some evidence of competent BCM performance.
If this is your reason then don’t panic; BCM isn’t as complicated or as difficult as you might think. Also you don’t have to be an expert in any of the other management systems such as ISO 9001 (Quality management systems) or ISO 14001 (Environmental management systems) – the BCM system can be implemented alone.
However because it follows the simple Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle of other management systems if you are already a user of ISO 9001 and/or ISO 14001 then getting started with the BCM system will be very familiar to you.1
Resource: 1 http://www.talkingbusinesscontinuity.com/becoming-certified/why-should-my-business-become-certified.aspx
If you’d like to learn more about the process required to improve your procurement departments procure to pay process, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services representative.
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