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5 Clauses of the ISO 9001 Quality Management Standard

by Isabel Blamey Professional writer
Learning how to achieve ISO certification requires understanding why you should achieve it and how it can help your business become more successful in the competitive market. ISO 9001 was issued by the International Organization for Standardization or ISO, and is the quality management standard for businesses of all types and sizes. It specifies the requirements that the quality management system or QMS of a business should consistently meet to produce high-quality products or services. 

The ISO 9001 standard determines certain clauses for effective quality management in a business. Let’s have a look at the details of the 5 major clauses that model the standard.

Quality Management System

The first clause is about the QMS that the business needs to follow to ensure efficiency in all its processes and make products/services free of defects. The ISO 9001 standard defines how quality must be managed in a business with an effective QMS. The system should be planned, devised and implemented by incorporating all the quality goals of a business. Additionally, the QMS approach works with the PDCA cycle, or Plan, Do, Check and Act cycle. While “Plan” and “Do” respectively imply planning and implementing the QMS, “Check” implies auditing the QMS for errors, and “Act” ensures the resolution of any errors. To implement a proper QMS with the PDCA approach in your business, you will need quality assurance services from a professional ISO consulting agency. 



Management Responsibility

No form of quality control is possible in a business until its senior management is deeply involved. The second clause of ISO 9001 is about management’s responsibility. As they are the most familiar with the quality objectives of the business, they should take the responsibility of developing and documenting the QMS framework. 

Resource Management

The third clause of ISO 9001 is resource management, which involves the joint contribution of the members of the organization. Everyone in the organization should strive to meet all the quality objectives with a viable QMS, and ensure the efficient utilization of their business resources. Resource management includes checking the quality of supplier products, using the company’s resources optimally, and controlling the use of toxic or unsustainable inputs in the production. This results in less waste and less production costs. It is for this reason that resource management is also linked to quality management because the use of better inputs leads to better and safer products or services that have a lower chance of recall. 

Product Realization

The fourth clause is product realization, which involves several steps but starts with a quality plan. The development of this plan includes documenting how your products/services are intended to meet customer expectations. Secondly, product realization requires checking the products or services for legal and regulatory requirements, to ensure you never have to deal with any possible litigations or penalties. It also calls for having a solid customer service handling procedure, a purchasing procedure, and a service or production plan.

Analysis and Improvement

The final or fifth clause of the ISO 9001 standard specifies the continuous analysis of the QMS, and ensuring any needed improvements are made. Customer demands change over time, and the nature of the products/services need to follow suit. Therefore, the QMS needs to be changed and improved to control the quality aspects and meet the changing customer expectations. This clause asks a business to keep improving their QMS to continuously fulfill the satisfaction of the buyers. 

All the of ISO 9001 clauses aim to promote continual improvement of the products/services quality. ISO 9001 certification is an opportunity to excel and outperform your competitors in the industry with quality and high customer satisfaction. However, if you’re stuck at how to achieve ISO certification for your business and do not know from where to start, get support from a quality assurance certification agency.  

Author bio: Damon Anderson is a dedicated consultant at a quality assurance services agency, and has assisted a number of businesses with ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and many other crucial certifications. He is an avid blog writer, and if you want to know how to achieve ISO certification for your business in a simple way with less costs, follow his blog. 

Contact Details:

Business Name: Compliancehelp Consulting, LLC
Email Id: info@quality-assurance.com
Phone No: 877 238 5855

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About Isabel Blamey Senior   Professional writer

176 connections, 6 recommendations, 590 honor points.
Joined APSense since, June 21st, 2016, From Perth, Australia.

Created on Jul 30th 2020 01:13. Viewed 361 times.

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