Since it was first published, ISO 9001 has aided in improving the workflow of many business. To date thousands of companies have implemented ISO 9001 quality management systems, however there are still many companies out there that are yet to do so. In this article we will outline the services provided by ISO 9001 consultants and why it is better to use an outside source to implement it.

1. ISO 9001 consultant can help Interpret the standard

Like many work related documents, the ISO 9001 quality management standard will be fairly hard to understand. It uses legal terms in order to define the requirements that need to be met, and can be applied to all business as it’s very general. Due to this, quite a few companies have trouble interpreting the standard to suit their workplace. This is where the help of an experienced ISO 9001 consultant will help greatly. With their knowledge and understanding they can easily interpret and implement the standard for YOUR company. It will be very specific to the business and processes that you run.

2. Gap audits

Before the standard can be implemented into your company it is essential that we first find what is missing in your existing quality management process. This allows the ISO 9001 consultant to be able to find what’s missing and put together a plan that will mend those gaps to aid you in finding out what needs to be done in order for you to meet the ISO 9001 requirements. Once the gaps have been identified it will be much easier to put together a plan that will assist in fully acquiring ISO 9001.

3.Planning

In order for the standard to be implemented with out any hitches it is important to plan every step of the implementation process; milestones, activities, resources and reviewing and training need to be monitored and all this takes time. Depending on the size of your organization it can take anywhere between 6 months to a bit more than a year to get everything running smoothly. During this time an ISO 9001 consultant will be your greatest asset.

4. Development and Implementation

This will be the most time consuming part of the entire process when trying to implement the standard as this is the time when issues tend to arise. It is crucial to be able to control the processes being implemented which can only be done with proper communication and a stable interaction between the many process being implemented. effective controls need to be set and managed, you also need to decide on how to set process goals and what to write records must be kept. This will be the most confusing time when implementing the process and the help of an external ISO 9001 consultant will be of a great advantage to you during this time. They can answer the questions that come up and take care of any issues as well.

5. Reviewing

To become an ISO 9001 certified company you must be audited by a certification body, who will review the readiness of your business including the planning, reviewing activities and documentation and the management system itself. All this is done using the ISO 9001 standard. After months of planning it would be a shame to find out that you may still have some gaps left within your system. As such it is advised to hire and external ISO 9001 consultant to do one last review to discover if there are any complications prior to the audit.

6. Internal Audits and Continual Improvement

In order to keep your certification it is required to conduct Internal audits to gauge the effectiveness of your quality management system and how it is coping after implementation. If you are short on resources or people to do so, it is advised to seek the aid of an ISO 9001 consultant (preferably the same one who helped implement the system).The standard also requires your ISO 9001 quality management system to be up to date in order to be effective and improve customer satisfaction.

This is just a small number of services provided by ISO 9001 consultants, if you would like to find out more give us a call or send us an email. We hope this article helped you out.

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