CLOSE
logo text
Tags Posts tagged with "standards"

standards

by -
ISO-Right-For-You

Product, Place, Price, Promotion. AKA, The Marketing Mix. This tool developed by J. McCarthy is a business basic model “used to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market”.

The Marketing Mix is one tool that can help you as an organization understand how to promote yourself and your product in a way that makes sense for your customer and their needs.

One thing you may learn during your analysis is your customers’ need for quality for example, or perhaps they care deeply about the environment and spending their dollars with environmentally conscious companies.

Researching your customer and their purchasing decisions can lead you to a new growth avenue – but can you achieve these?

In this article, you will learn how the adoption of standards, like ISO 9001, ISO 14001 or ISO 45001 can not only help your organization and its longevity, but it can also show your commitment to your customers through certification.

Why ISO Standards?

Part of ISO Guidelines is a framework for success – guiding requirements that have been created by industry professionals and evaluated by a committee. They have been approved as an internationally adopted and recognized framework to build a business upon.

For example, if you work in the Aerospace industry, you have a different framework than those in the Automotive industry because you have different unique challenges.

The generic quality framework, ISO 9001:2015, was designed as a foundation for success with generic business principles and frameworks to allow organizations to create or improve an organization at its most basic roots to ensure efficiency and quality of work.

Implementing ISO 9001 into your business allows you to take time to look deep into the organization, and evaluate what you do great, what you do well, and what needs improvement.

Standards are not only a great foundation to grow a business upon though. These guiding requirements allow you to look within your organization, find your strength and allow them to shine and identify possible areas for improvement, places that need help to grow to their full potential.

The nature of ISO Standards audit processes allows unbiased reviews to truly see the organization without judgement. This is a great marketing opportunity to showcase your strengths.

Promote your certificate, your congratulatory statements from auditors, and what you are proud of.

Part of ISO 9001 is also measuring and monitoring. If you are interested in learning about how much productivity has gone up each quarter, or the number of sales per year, you are encouraged to do so in ISO 9001.

This is a great opportunity to learn real facts about your organization, in an effective manner, that you can then share with your customers. These are real, tangible numbers than can really impress prospective clients.

If you are looking to attract new people to your organization, you might want to look into obtaining ISO 14001:2015 certification. “Of those born between 1981 and 1996, 62% want to work for a company that makes a positive impact”. 

Companies with an active interest in sustainable practices, and the certification to prove that, can gain a lot of edge in the competitive hiring market place. Not only that but showcasing your commitment to sustainability and quality of goods and workplace safety with certification to ISO 45001, the standard for occupation health & safety, can prove to prospective hires how committed to their wellbeing you are.

Standards help you as an organization navigate best practises while allowing you to thrive as a unique organization and culture.

ISO Certification does not ask you to subscribe to a one size fits all approach to business. But it does show you how to eliminate inefficiencies and set you on a path for growth and longevity with a base set of tools for success.

by -
Understanding ISO 21041 and Unit Pricing - ISOUpdate.com

With ISO 21041, consumers can now make better and easier buying decisions that allow them to compare the values of related products and decide accordingly which one to spend their valuable dollars on. Following ISO 21041 and its protocol is not only beneficial for the consumers but also for the retailers through unit pricing.

Did you know: ISO 21041 is the result of an international effort that was led by a team of experts from Australia?

What is ISO 21041?

ISO 21041:2018, namely, Guidance on unit pricing, sets down several prerequisites that will allow consumers to compare the prices of similar items to make more informed buying choices.

ISO 21041 guides store owners and retailers on an effective way to display unit pricing on all the products in their stores, regardless of whether they are on shelves or in packages, as well as in the advertisements for these products and demonstrates how important it is to educate and provide clarity to consumers to maintain transparency.

What is Unit Pricing?

Unit Pricing, also known as comparative pricing, is the way of pricing products or services such that the price displayed shows the price of one standard unit of measure. This way, consumers can easily determine which product provides more value.

For example, if one milk company offers milk in a liter pack and another company offers milk in a half liter pack, then unit pricing demands that the prices of both companies be displayed according to one liter. This way, consumers can easily decide which company to opt for instead of having to perform calculations.

Understanding ISO 21041 and Unit Pricing Labels - ISOUpdate.com

Why is Unit Pricing Necessary?

Inconsistent pricing methods can lead to a confusing shopping experience for consumers, which can lead to purchase trade off, where a potential customer determines your product is less than a competitor based on value. Even worse, this confusion can increase their decision avoidance, where a purchase could have been made but was bypassed to avoid emotional costs of making the decision. – Source

This level of confusion leads to distrust among the consumers for the retailer. By opting for an easy to understand and evaluate method of pricing, retailers can demonstrate that they believe in transparency and aiding their consumers. This is because price transparency is one of the most effective ways to gain the trust of consumers as it makes it easier to make purchasing choices.

This relationship between consumer trust and pricing transparency was apparent in a study conducted by Australia’s Queensland University of Technology, where consumers remarked that unit pricing helped them make easier purchasing decisions so that they could shop with a higher confidence.

The research also showed that adopting unit pricing also led to a positive change in the attitudes of the consumers towards retailers.

Unit Pricing and Global Consumerism

Standardized unit pricing will also make it easier for consumers to make more informed buying decisions on a more global level.

By adopting ISO 21041 ambiguity and confusion around the pricing system can be nearly eliminated.

Summary

“ISO 21041 includes guidance on the provision of unit price, their units of measure used to express unit price including weight, length, volume, count, area and other forms of measure. ISO 21041 also highlights guidance on the display of unit price, and the implementation, communication and education of consumers.

ISO 21041 is applicable to any retailer, including supermarkets, hardware stores, pharmacies, convenience stores, automotive parts suppliers and pet product suppliers.

Note: ISO 21041 is applicable to packaged and non-packaged food and consumer products where the price is displayed, including

— at point of sale, including in-store and online, and

— when relevant communications about the product are released (including advertising by electronic and printed formats).

Note: ISO 21041 excludes services and merchandise, such as clothing and electronic goods sold as a single item.”  – Source

In short, adopting ISO 21041 and standardized unit pricing not only helps the consumers make better choices but is also beneficial for the retailers as it promotes positive consumer attitudes and increases customers trust in your brand.

by -

In many organizations (manufacturing or services) the processes present variability, this means they are not completely stable. The ISO 10017 standard seeks to help organizations in the identification of statistical techniques which can be useful in the development, implementation, maintenance and improvement of a quality management system, in compliance with the ISO 9001:2015 standard requirements.

Variability can be confirmed in those quantifiable characteristics of the products and processes, and can be observed at the exit of various stages in the total life cycle of the products.

The main benefit of the application of statistical techniques is they facilitate the measurement, description, analysis and interpretation of variability in the processes, even with a relatively limited amount of data. In fact, statistical analysis of this data can provide a greater understanding of the nature, extent, and causes of variability. This contributes to solve and even prevent problems that could result from such variability.

This is how statistical techniques become tools for the proper handling and use of data available for decision-making, which undoubtedly contributes to the continuous improvement of the quality of products and processes to achieve Customer Satisfaction. These techniques can be applied in various activities, such as market research, design, development, production, verification, installation and service.



ISO 10017: Guidance on statistical techniques for the ISO 9001 standard

The ISO 10017 standard is a technical report that aims to guide and assist any organization in the consideration and selection of statistical techniques appropriate to their needs. It should be noted that the criteria for determining the need for statistical techniques, and the appropriateness of the techniques selected, is a decision subject to each company. The aforementioned techniques can be useful in the development, implementation, maintenance and improvement of a quality management system in compliance with the ISO 9001 standard.

To this end, it is essential that the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard which involve the use of quantitative data are examined, and in this way, the statistical techniques that are useful in applying them to these data are identified and described.

The ISO 10017 standard clarifies that its content of statistical techniques is not complete or exhaustive, and does not exclude the use of any other technique which may be considered beneficial for the organization. It does not try to establish which techniques should be used, nor does it advise on how to implement them. Even this standard specifies that statistical techniques can be applied from qualitative data as long as they can be transformed into quantitative data.

Major statistical techniques that can be used by organizations

  • Descriptive statistics
  • Design of experiments
  • Hypothesis test
  • Measurement analysis
  • Process capacity analysis;
  • Regression analysis
  • Reliability analysis
  • Sampling
  • Simulation
  • Statistical process Control charts (CEP);
  • Fixation of statistical tolerances;
  • Time-series analysis.

From this group of techniques, descriptive techniques (including graphical methods) are an important aspect of many of these techniques.

Application of statistical techniques in accordance with ISO 9001:2015 standard

The chapters in which statistical techniques are required to be applied in accordance with ISO 9001:2015 are as follows:

Chapter 6: Planning, in number 6.1. Actions to address risks and opportunities

Chapter 7: Support, in the numeral 7.1.5. Monitoring and measuring resources

Chapter 9: Performance evaluation, in numeral 9.1. Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation

Definitively, the use and application of statistical techniques is essential for organizations, because decision-making must be based on objective data.

by -
Become a Third Party Auditor - ISOUpdate.com

An accreditation body (AB) is an organization that provides accreditation services, which is a formal, third party recognition of competence to perform specific tasks. In other words, it means that organizations seeking accreditation can demonstrate to their customers that they have been successful at meeting the requirements of international accreditation standards.

In the last few decades many specified standards have been developed, and with them the number of organizations that check conformity and compliance with these standards has grown. These organizations provide services such as testing, inspection, calibration and certification and they may be laboratories, inspection bodies, certification bodies or other types of organizations. Anything or anyone can be evaluated (products, equipment, people, management systems or organizations) and the role of an accreditation body is to assess the technical competence and integrity of the organizations offering these kinds of evaluation services by:

  • Ensuring that certification bodies, inspection agencies, calibration/testing laboratories and other conformity assessment bodies meet established standards that will enable them to provide a service in an objective and independent manner.
  • Ensuring compliance with codes of ethics/conduct when providing assessment services.
  • Examining the competence of the organization’s staff.
  • Verifying the scope of an organization’s services. There are many sector specific standards and because not all organizations perform the same work or have similar capabilities, accreditation bodies can help identify and qualify those that are competent to perform a defined scope of work.

Regarding the quality of products and services, accreditation bodies play an important role because many are motivated to define and measure quality in a particular field. In their vision and mission statements, most accreditation bodies include quality improvement in their respective field. This helps keep accredited programs constantly focused on quality improvement as one of their own measures of success.

When an organization has been accredited by an accreditation body it means that they have been assessed against internationally recognized standards to demonstrate their competence, impartiality and performance capability. This serves as a means to identify a proven, competent evaluator so that the selection of a laboratory, inspection or certification body is an informed choice.  Most accreditation bodies provide a list of the organizations they have accredited, facilitating the search of these accredited organizations.

 

©