When we market ISO 9001 Consultancy services, companies often enquire, "Explain exactly how we can gain from engaging your services?" Good question. The ISO 9001:2015 quality management system (QMS) can be very useful in improving your organization. To achieve these benefits, a business must have the knowledge to implement ISO 9001 in the right manner.
ISO 9001 Consulting firms offer a number of services. Let us check out some of these so that you can determine what selection of services would best suit your company:
Gap Audit
Before applying the ISO 9001:2015 standard to your business, you need to know what missing between your existing business practices and controls relative to ISO 9001. Engaging ISO 9001 consulting services, you can have a review done of your current management system practices, controls and documentation, to establish the extent to which you conform to ISO 9001 requirements. The consultant will give you a detailed audit report indicating the gaps in your company, along with their recommendations. This will help in putting together your ISO 9001 project implementation plan to achieve full conformity. Quality Assurance
Project Planning and Organization
Depending on the size and complexity of your company, an ISO 9001:2015 implementation project can take anywhere from six to eighteen months to complete. Your ISO project needs to be well-planned in terms of how much time and resources needed, specific activities to be carried out, who will be responsible for each activity, milestone reviews, authorizations, training, dealing with problems, etc. A good ISO 9001 consultant can be a valuable aid in assisting your business deal with this important activity.
Management System Documentation
The latest ISO 9001:2015 standard has significantly reduced attention on documentation and maximized its attention on effective planning and control. Sufficient documentation is however needed for many business processes in order to ensure consistent application of effective controls. Many organizations have either too much or too little documentation. An experienced consultant can help your organization determine where it is needed, how much and how it should be documented.
Pre-assessment
ISO 9001 Registrars (also referred to as Certification Bodies) perform their certification audit in two stages. In stage 1, they review how ready your business is (which includes your planning, documentation and internal review activities) and in stage 2 they audit your management system for effective implementation of planned controls, in both cases the review is done against the ISO 9001 standard. After spending several months of implementation, you consider your company ready for the certification audit, it might be useful to use external consulting to do a once-over to determine if you are truly ready, identify any shortcomings and help you take appropriate corrective action, prior to the Registrar audit. ISO Management System
Training
ISO 9001 consultancy services often offer a variety of training options. These include
- ISO 9001:2015 awareness training to employees at all levels
- An executive overview of the ISO standard for top management
- Process identification, mapping, analysis and improvement
- ISO project management
- ISO documentation and implementation
- Internal audit
Based on the extent of internal expertise within your organization, you may wish to have an external ISO 9001 consulting service provide some or all of this training.
Improvement Process
The ISO 9001:2015 standard expects your quality management system to be dynamic and work towards continually improving the effectiveness and efficiency of your organization and also enhance customer satisfaction. Many ISO 9001 consulting firms have diversified skills and experience in continual improvement strategies and methods. These could include problem-solving, six sigma, lean manufacturing, use of various business software and tools, etc. They can greatly increase your pace at gaining further operational efficiency, customer satisfaction and increased business profitability.
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