How to Achieve ISO Quality Assurance Certification?

Is gaining ISO 9001 certification on your cards right now? Then, this article is a must read for you. Go through this article to learn the five steps that will take you to the certification.

Is there any need for explaining what ISO 9001 certification is? Not at all! Every business is well aware of the standard. What these businesses may find a bit difficult is how to achieve the certification. Well, there are two ways available for you, either you can choose reliable quality assurance services or you can do it all by yourself with the help of numerous tools. The choice is solely yours. No matter which way you have chosen, there are five steps that you must undertake to reach the ISO 9001 certification.

In this article, we are going to discuss the five steps one by one so that you can easily understand the certification process.

Preparation is critical for achieving ISO certification. You should put much effort into the preparation process to make the certification smoother. How to take the preparation?

• First, educate yourself about the ISO standard; learn about its requirements

• Analyze your business and try to find out why you can add value to your business with ISO certification

• Align your business objectives with the ISO 9001:2015 requirements

• Outline an effective plan

• Discuss the plan with your senior management

• Provide your employees with the right information about ISO 9001 Standard

These are the basic tasks that you should complete in the preparation step. After that, you may work on documentation and implementation.

When you are thinking about how to achieve ISO certification, then you must have heard of the basic steps required for incorporating the ISO 9001 Standard. Documentation is one of these steps. You need to write your quality policy and other ISO 9001 procedures. However, your documents must meet diverse technical requirements meant for the ISO 9001:2015 standard. Listed below are the main documents that ISO 9001 standard needs:

• Quality Policy

• Procedures

• Scope of the Quality Management System

• Process Roadmap

• Quality Objectives

• Work instructions

• Forms

In this context, it must be noted that ISO 9001 documentation is a detailed process, you are not allowed to give only a vague idea about the required documents. The documents you are submitting should be detailed and vivid.

This is one of the most important steps of this entire certification process. Remember, your success will depend on the implementation of the QMS. Therefore, you should make sure that your QMS has been implemented as per the plan you made. After implementation, ask your experts to monitor the system for finding out whether everything is working as per the plan or not. If you find any loophole, immediately address the issue before it creates an obstacle in the certification process.

Internal audit is a method of evaluating the QMS to determine whether all ISO 9001 requirements have been maintained or not. Internal audit is conducted even after gaining the certification. After gaining the certification, a business needs to retain the validity of the certification. For retaining the validation, it is important to maintain consistency and consistency can be achieved through a regular audit.

Some companies prefer employing their in-house resources for performing the internal audit while some others may prefer professionals for auditing. It is important to conduct internal audit just like the final audit so that you can get a hint about the final assessment.

For gaining the certification, you need to hire an independent and non-biased certification body. The audit team of your chosen certification body will visit your workplace and conduct a site audit. Often companies keep asking the experts what the best time is for performing this third-party audit. Well, in most of the cases, professional quality assurance services suggest their clients perform this final audit soon after they have completed the ISO 9001 internal audit.

The final audit is much like an internal audit. The certification body will send a team of auditors for visiting all the departments of your company. They will verify whether all the requirements have been met or not. You should be ready to face some typical questions on ISO 9001 Quality Management Standard. Once the auditors find everything within your Quality Management System is perfect and aligned with the ISO 9001:2015 requirements, you will be able to achieve the certification.

A systematic approach will help you avoid the complexities of the certification process. Follow the steps, put efforts, and achieve the certification!

Damon Anderson an ISO 9001 internal auditor and passionate blogger. He provides aspiring auditors training and helps people who are thinking about how to achieve ISO certification. He has produced a dozen of blogs on ISO certification.

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