The benefits of ISO 9001 should not be underestimated. Organizations of all sizes benefit greatly by leveraging this standard, realizing cost and efficiency savings, and resulting improvements in the bottom line. Here are six good reasons to embrace the ISO 9001 –
- Optimization of Process Integration – Viewing the overall processes and how they interact using the process approach of ISO 9001 enables the Organization to more readily identify improvements in efficiency, resulting in cost savings. Optimizing process flows can also drive efficiencies, reduce errors, reduce rework, and eliminating waste that can occur when processes are not maintained with consideration of inefficiencies.
- Employee Engagement – involving employees in improving the processes they work with results in happier and more engaged employees, enabling greater productivity. Engaged employees are especially more productive when they understand the process and how they contribute to the result. No one is more valuable than the people working on the process in identifying areas that need improvement and helping design and implement real improvements.
- A Culture of Continual Improvement – Continual improvement is a cornerstone management principle of ISO 9001. Embracing the commitment to improve your processes and organizational outputs will identify inefficiencies by design and deployment use of systematic methodologies. This is especially evident when problems occur and effective in reducing the impacts of problems by eliminating their root causes. Embedding this in your organization’s DNA results in tangible, continual year over year improvements greatly benefiting the Organization.
- Enhancing the Image of the Organization – ISO 9001 is the gold standard of internationally recognized quality management systems and has become the de facto method for creating world class quality management systems. It is often a requirement when an organization is considering a supplier. This is particularly the case when competing for public sector jobs in many countries. Holding ISO 9001 certification is a powerful marketing tool.
- Customer Satisfaction – A foundational principle of the ISO 9001 is measuring and improving customer satisfaction. Improving customer satisfaction results in retaining customers. This means more repeat business, better customer testimonials, and more customer referrals. And more revenue!
- Fact based Decision Making – Another key principle of ISO 9001 is the evidence-based decision making. Decisions based on evidence, rather than “gut feeling” focuses on applying resources to the areas that will improve efficiencies and increase cost savings with less trial and error. Monitoring the processes you are improving allows you to see how much improvement has occurred – based on the data.
ISO 9001 Is Foundational
ISO 9001 is a solid foundation for implementing many other Annex SL based management standards, such as ISO 14001 for environmental management and ISO 27000 for IT service management, which follow much of the same structure and organization
The international nature of ISO 9001 has already been identified and is, in fact, such a basic and influential standard that it has been used as the basis when industry groups want to add specific industry requirements, thus creating their own industry standard. Among these are IATF 16949 (Automotive), AS9100 (Aerospace), and ISO 13485 (Medical Devices).