ISO 9001 is a part of the ISO 9000 family of QMS standards. It helps to efficiently prevent quality issues to optimally satisfy customers, employees, business partners, and industry. ISO 9001 is the only standard in this family to certify to. Over a million companies and organizations across more than 170 countries are presently certified to ISO 9001 standards. The various principles in this standard help create efficiencies to bring down costs, create new opportunities, meet regulatory requirements, and enable companies to expand to new markets where clients demand this certification.
The various governing principles of quality management at the center of the ISO 9001 standard include:
Process Approach
ISO 9001 standard helps to facilitate better quality control. By adhering to this standard, the stakeholders can identify the relevant key performance metrics integral to the process to efficiently streamline it and generate better results. It helps to ensure throughput, equipment effectiveness, deliver a project on time, and maximize overall performance. ISO 9001 offers more control over the business processes. The adoption of this process approach helps an organization to achieve more predictable and consistent results.
Customer Focus
The first QMS principle begins with the customers. Customer focus is at the core of the ISO 9001 standard to ensure that the customer receives the benefit of a product or service your company offers. Aligning work practices to these standards help you meet and exceed customer requirements and expectations by providing products and services that effectively address them.
Leadership
The role of leadership in the ISO 9001 quality management system forms the backbone of the process strategy. When leaders efficiently establish and maintain sustainable work environments, it helps to ensure that the employees are thoroughly engaged to achieve the organizations’ unified quality goals. The leaders must identify a single purpose and direction to create working conditions that motivate the employees to meet the quality objectives.
System Approach to Management
The process approach lies within the system approach. To attain a cohesive and unified system, the stakeholders must understand, analyze, and manage the various interrelated processes that will help to meet the organizational objectives. A unified QMS brings about a standardized approach that is aligned to the identified key performance metrics and goals.
Factual Approach to Decision-Making
The decision-making process should not be based on assumptions but needs to appropriately leverage data to bring about quality decisions. The competent staff members involved must analyze and evaluate available data and information with the help of advanced tools and methods to make the right decisions. However, it is also necessary to ensure the data quality and accuracy before incorporating it to make decisions.
To Conclude:
These are a few fundamental principles of quality management that define the spirit of the ISO 9001 standard. Adopting this standard will help enhance your company’s products, services, and processes and bring about enhanced customer satisfaction.
