ISO 9001 Certification
ISO 9001 Certification has many benefits. It is an international standard that identifies the requirements for a quality management system (QMS). Organizations become accredited to show their ability to regularly deliver products and services that meet customer and regulatory requirements. If you decided or required to become certified, ISO 9001 offers support for your staff and customers.
Changes in the operations of your company will often impose a certain additional load on your business, but the benefits of implementing the ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System (QMS) worth the effort as you advance.
Paperwork is one of many things that technology and electronic files are rendering obsolete by. Implementing a QMS (like ISO 9001) is a similar thing – a little work upfront, but the benefits of ISO within your organization will be clearly seen after a short time.
Despite your certification, we strongly recommend you follow the seven Quality Management Principles (QMPs) to expand the ISO 9001:2015 benefits:
- Engagement of people.
- Customer focus.
- Leadership.
- Process approach.
- Improvement.
- Evidence-based decision making.
- Relationship management.
10 Benefits of ISO 9001
The ten benefits of ISO 9001:2015 are
- Increased Efficiency: Companies need to know how to maximize the quality and efficiency before going through the certification process of ISO 9000 series, Quality Management Standards. Once certification is obtained, the processes will be developed. There are guidelines which anyone can easily obey, making it easy to provide training, transitions and even for the of purpose troubleshooting.
- Increased Revenue: It was observed that the ISO 9001 Quality Management System (QMS) accredited companies showed increases in efficiency and financial performance as opposed to uncertified ones.
- Employee Morale: If there are defined roles and responsibilities, management transparency, proven training procedure and a well-developed image of how employees’ roles impact the company’s productivity and overall performance, employees will become happier and more empowered.
- International Recognition: The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is globally recognized as the authority on quality management.
- Factual Approach to Decision Making: The ISO 9000 QMS standard sets out specific instructions regarding audits and process reviews. This assists in data-based information gathering and decision making.
- Supplier Relationships: ISO certification was found to be advantageous with respect to supplier relationships. The documentation and testing procedures help to ensure the quality of the raw materials used for production purpose. This also helps assess a new supplier properly before changing suppliers. There is a procedure for checking consistency with respect to how and where the orders are placed.
- Documentation: Since the ISO 9001:2015 QMS standard requires proper documentation of all processes and changes made, errors or inconsistencies, it helps to mitigate issues and provides constancy. The personnel are also more accountable. Documentation also guarantees that traceable records are available in case of non-compliant products or raw materials.
- Consistency: Since all processes are documented, the scope of errors is minimal. Processes beginning from research and development, covering production and shipping are well documented. Even any small change in the process must be documented to ensure that the changes are well planned and enforced to ensure maximum efficiency in the best way possible.
- Customer Satisfaction: Companies can easily gain customer trust as ISO is a universally accepted standard. ISO 9001 QMS certification ensures efficiency, consistency and dedicated quality service by the companies ensuring customer satisfaction.
- Improvement Processes: The ISO 9001 QMS focuses on audit processes, management review and improved processes based on collected data. Based on the facts and using a documentation and analysis system, improvements are planned and implemented carefully. This guarantees that your company will make the best decisions.
What is the ROI of ISO 9001?
The Return on Investment (ROI) for ISO 9001:2015 can be seen from an increase in customers to a decrease in waste in several different areas of the organization. ROI can vary depending on what kind of industry you are in. Companies generally see an increase in revenue, cost reductions and an increase in profit. The data below shows you the advantages of ISO 9001:
- 72%of corporations with ISO 9001 report a major competitive advantage since they are gaining more business after introducing the QMS.
- 33%of ISO 9001-certified companies reported an increase in customer demand.
- 69%of companies that don’t have ISO 9001 claim they have lost a customer bid or proposal to a competitor who is a certified ISO 9001:2015 customer.
- 35-40%of companies stated that their competitors are ISO 9001:2015 accredited or are in the process of being accredited. As ISO 9001 continues to grow, so is your competition that will make you fall back ever more.
ISO 9001 for Top Management and Employees
Another great benefit of ISO 9001 certification is company involvement. If you choose to adopt the ISO 9001:2015 QMS standard in your organization, the requirements necessitate a greater participation of top management which will enhance the overall Quality Management System.
- This starts with setting the Quality Policy, Quality Goals and Objectives.
- It continues with Management Review; observing data from the QMS, and taking actions to make sure that the Quality Goals are met.
- New goals are set for the purpose of Continual Improvement.
With the QMS in place and working for you, the organization is focused on Quality Goals.
- Data is collected and provided to the management on an ongoing basis to be able to see progress or lack of progress towards goals and take appropriate action.
- The planned, scheduled Management Review process ensures that this evaluation is carried out.
- It offers a mechanism for reviewing goals and performance against goals on a scheduled basis, and for acting based on the evaluation.
- Increased productivity results from the initial evaluation and improvement of processes during implementation, training and qualification of employees.
- Better documentation or supervision of processes (for instance, having and following a formal quality manual) results in consistency in performance, and less scrap and rework.
- Managers experience less late-night troubleshooting calls; employees have further information for troubleshooting problems on their own.
ISO 9001 for Customer Satisfaction
Customer loyalty is another big advantage of ISO 9001:2015 QMS, as Goals and Objectives take the customer needs into account resulting in customer satisfaction improvements.
- Customer expectations are best understood by searching, collecting and analyzing the customer feedback.
- Goals and objectives are adjusted based on the information and the organization becomes more customer driven.
- As goals focus on the customer, the organization employs less time focusing on individual goals of departments and more time working together to meet customer needs.
All of this leads to financial returns. Studies have shown that spending money on prevention is much less expensive than fixing an issue after a product or service have already been provided to a customer. Models also shown that the costs tenfold as you move from prevention to external failure costs. This implies that it will cost your organization approximately 10 times as much to deal with an issue once it reached a customer than if it was dealt with in-house, and it would be a tenth to prevent the issue, to begin with.
In a study conducted by UCLA researchers the results showed that U.S. publicly owned ISO 9001 certified companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange, show substantial improvement in financial performance relative to those companies that did not meet the standard. By embracing the family of standards like 9001:2015, ISO becomes a critical tool for overall success. Hence the benefits of ISO 9001 certification are palpable.
To find out more about ISO 9001 certification in UAE, reach out to our team right away!
