What is ISO 9001?

ISO 9001 is an International Standard that specifies requirements for your Quality Management System.  Organisations use this standard to demonstrate an independently verifiable standard for quality: the ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer and legal requirements. 

Used in over 178 countries, ISO 9001 gives organisations a set of management guidelines that help ensure consistently high-quality products and results.  ISO 9001 does not outline exactly how a business should be managed but instead offers a flexible system that companies can implement to improve quality control.

The goal of quality management standards is to help businesses operate more efficiently and reduce product/service failures.

This standard is built around a process approach which incorporates the plan, do, check, act. (PDCA) cycle for continuous improvement.

Quick tip: Many processes and practices within an organisation may already meet or exceed these standards in some areas; therefore, the standard validates this and provides a roadmap for improvements in other areas.

When implementing any management system into your organisation, the goal should be documentation that adds value. Creating needless paperwork is beneficial to no one.  There is no requirement to have any documented procedures with this new standard.  Our advice? Only create a procedure if there is potential risk of deviation from process that should be followed. 

Think about your critical processes.  I.e., the core of what your organisation does.  For e.g., a building contractors main process would be, sales/tendering for work, design building and installation operations, purchasing and so on.

What are the requirements of this ISO standard? 

This International Standard employs the process approach, which incorporates the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle and risk-based thinking. 

The main clauses where action is required are highlighted as:

Ø  Clause 4: Context of the Organisation (Organisation and context, needs and expectations of interested parties, scope of QMS and its processes).

Ø  Clause 5: Leadership (Leadership & Commitment, Customer Focus, Quality Policy and Roles, Responsibilities & Authorities). 

Ø  Clause 6: Planning (Risks & opportunities, objectives and planning of changes).

Ø  Clause 7: Support (Resources, Competence, Awareness, Communication & Documented Information).

Ø  Clause 8: Operation (Planning & control of operations, requirements for products & services, design & development, Suppliers & Subcontractors, Production & Service Provision & Control of nonconforming outputs).

Ø  Clause 9: Performance Evaluation (Monitoring, measurement, analysis & evaluation, internal audit & management review).

Ø  Clause 10: Improvement (Nonconformity & corrective action & continual improvement).

The exact requirements of these clauses are covered in more detail in Armour platform.

“Every step broken down, simplified, and supplemented with all the templates and explanatory notes you need.  The entire process has been laid out to facilitate a hand holding experience from start to finish.”

Our team at Armour have decades of experience working as consultants and auditors covering a wide range of sectors and we are always on hand to help. 

Contact us via messaging function, or simply dropping us an email at info@armour.ai