Standards, certification, testing and inspection help businesses to reduce costs, increase productivity and access new markets. ISO 9001 certification aims towards continual improvement based on a system of constant feedback and action, which works with your company’s goals and missions to help you achieve company objectives and targets. But, how does ISO 9001 certification benefit your business goals?
Improve Company Performance through Improved Operational and Product Quality and Consistency
Consistency refers to decreased variation in operations and, subsequently, your product. Deviations from desired results should result in upper management not just questioning what went wrong, but how their process allowed for the mistake to be made. With a properly implemented management system, steps and controls are in place to prevent such occurrences. When implemented correctly, your management system should allow for seamless production and effective practices that reduce downtime, confusion, and non-conforming products from reaching the customer.
Consider your quality management processes the well-built foundation that your business is built on and grows upon. Controls are built upon objectives, data metrics, and procedure flexibility, the interaction of all these variables should contribute to a well-established Quality Management System, which should, in turn, improve the quality and consistency of the product.
Expanding Market Opportunities and Customer Base through Improved Overall Quality of Products and Services
Your organization is constantly striving to improve your processes, adapting and accommodating to a forever changing global landscape and increase in international competition. Implementation of ISO 9001 provides your organization with a guideline for success, and measures to report against to prove your growth. Using a process approach to business, ISO 9001 enables your organization to focus on quality and consistency in your outputs while decreasing waste and increasing efficiency. The reduction, or elimination, of variation and improved consistency results in more efficient procedures that are less wasteful than their previous counterparts. In a case study from Shogyo International, the company leveraged the management system and ISO 9001 to qualify for projects they previously were not able to and to eliminate tedious practices like lengthy questionnaires. They also gained understanding, specifically with regards to nonconformities – when a customer requests corrective action, they now understand what process to follow. ISO 9001 also allowed Shogyo to gain better control of their vendor’s nonconformities, which in turn allowed them to track and monitor trends.
Shogyo International predicted that this increase in market potential and decrease in inefficient practices would result in over $200k in increased sales volume. “Given the reduction in their employees spending less time filling out long questionnaires during bids, they are already saving about $6,000 per year, enabling the business to recover their investment in ISO 9001 certification in less than 2 years.” Source
Better Understand Production Procedure
ISO 9001 requires your organization to provide detailed and effective documentation of processes as well as identification of affecting external factors and appropriate courses of action or metrics. With increased attention to procedures, best practices, and improvement, organizations using ISO 9001 see dramatic increases in the understanding and effectiveness of their processes, and how to better them.
Utilizing ISO 55001, one organization improved its risk management and reliability, with work delivered more efficiently towards higher ‘risk to operations’ activities, reducing reactive work by nearly 40%. The organization saw more focus delivered to continuous improvement activities, enabling even more benefits to be realized and saw a 41% reliability improvement over 36 months with their certification. –Source
Summary
“Conformity assessment has a range of strands, all of which contribute to giving people confidence and assurance in using and buying products and services. These strands include testing, inspection, certification and accreditation. – Source
They can help to:
- Build customer confidence that your products are safe and reliable;
- Meet regulation requirements, at a lower cost;
- Reduce costs across all aspects of your business; and
- Gain market access across the world.
