ISO 9001

Overview

Since the first release ISO 9001 over 30 years ago, more than a million organizations worldwide have adopted the principles and achieved certification to the requirements of ISO9001, making it by far far the world’s most internationally recognized and most established quality framework.

The ISO 9001 standard can be applied to any type or size of organization, from small family businesses to the world’s largest corporations and government institutions. It provides a structured yet flexible framework for a customer-focused quality management system (QMS) that drives performance improvement.

Today’s version (ISO9001:2015) provides organizations with a comprehensive process-focused framework upon which an organization can build business processes that lead to the successful achievement of organizational objectives while the adoption of the risk based thinking establishes a basis for increasing the effectiveness of the quality management system, achieving improved results and preventing negative effects.

ISO9001 STANDARD

ISO 9001 can help any kind of organization to improve customer satisfaction, motivate employees and promote a culture of continual improvement.

The standard promotes the adoption of a process approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness of a quality management system, to enhance customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements.

The major clauses in the standard that contain the requirements are:

• Context of the organization
• Leadership
• Planning
• Support
• Operation
• Performance evaluation
• Improvement

ISO 9001 is based on the following Quality Management Principles, which are incorporated within the requirements of the standard, and can be applied to improve organizational performance:

• Customer focus
• Leadership
• Engagement of people
• Process approach
• Improvement
• Evidence-based decision making
• Relationship management.

KEY BENEFITS

Some of the direct benefits achieved by ISO 9001 certified companies include

• Proves your commitment to quality and customer satisfaction
• Improves financial performance as studies have consistently shown that ISO 9001 certified outperform non-certified companies
• Ensures your products and services effectively meet customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements
• Helps improve your organizational performance and makes it easier to measure performance and better manage business risk
• Enhances brand reputation and can be a useful promotional tool

STEPS TO CERTIFICATION

Step 1: Proposal for Certification – Contact AVRV and exchange of preliminary information. AVRV provides you a proposal based on the size and nature of your organization, detailing the the cost and time involved.

Step 2: Optional pre-audit – You may decide to perform pre-audit to assess the readiness of your organization for the audit. This stage is optional

Step 3: Stage 1 Audit – Readiness review of your management system to verify the status of your organization for certification that includes compliance of your documented system, examination of key elements of the system and planning of next audit steps. At the end of this step you will receive a report summing up all findings (critical and non critical).

Step 4: Stage 2 Audit – Evaluation of the implementation and systems effectiveness through observation of working practices, personnel interviews and examination of records. At the end of this stage all audit finding will be presented to you by the lead auditor that include nonconformities, opportunities for improvement and positive aspects.

Step 5: Recommendation for Certification – The auditors team shall propose their recommendation based on the evaluation and review of the effective implementation of corrections and corrective actions on findings raised during Stage 1&2 Audits. The final audit report is forwarded for the review and decision.

Step 6: Technical Review and Issue of Certificate subject to successful audit –Appointed independent and impartial team of AVRV reviews the audit report and the recommendation of the audit team and decides further on granting or not certification.

Step 7: Awarding Certification –The client is informed on the results of the certification decision and following successful certification a three years certification cycle is initiated and a certificate is issued

Step 8: Surveillance audit – Each year the validity of the certification remains subject to successful surveillance audits. Every twelve months we will verify that the management system conforms to the requirements of the standard.

Step 9: Re-certification – After 3 years and before the expiry of your certification our routine visit will be extended to enable a re-certification audit.

The technical review and decision of certification includes granting, refusing, maintaining, renewing, suspending, restoring or withdrawing certification or expanding or reducing the scope of the certification.

Certification Flowchart

The roadmap of the certification process is summarized as follows

The technical review and decision of certification includes granting, refusing, maintaining, renewing, suspending, restoring or withdrawing certification or expanding or reducing the scope of the certification