ISO 9001

[bluesj]

Anyone understand it or can point me in the direction of some one the does?

Warning other iso questions may be coming.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Quality management, lots of reading!

[bluesj]

10 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Quality management, lots of reading!

Lots of bull **** as well as far as i can see with no advantage to anyone other than you can work for  someone that asks that you have it before they let you do work for them!

[Cosmicblue]

https://www.iso.org/files/live/sites/isoorg/files/store/en/PUB100368.pdf

The ISO standards can be viewed as aspirational objectives which an organisation aims to satisfy.  Not all of the ISO 9001 standards will be applicable to all businesses so it's a kind of pick n mix as you select what's needed.

Once in place and documentation created that pertains to the business - often referred to as the 'Quality Manual'.   Certification is achieved by submitting to audit by an accredited external auditor - never racking for the responsible employees and tedious for the rest in my experience...😉

[welsh1]

You basically show you have the right stuff in place to give good service.

You will of course pay for the priviledge.

The company i work for are iso 9001 , SAFed, BSI and UKAS, A lot of work goes into having the correct paperwork and processes in place for the inspections and good advice is given by the inspectors showing where the company could benefit from doing a process differently, although at times it does feel like they are just looking for a little thing to justify their large fee.

A lot of companies will want certain qualifications if you are tendering for work.

 

[bluesj]

16 minutes ago, Cosmicblue said:

https://www.iso.org/files/live/sites/isoorg/files/store/en/PUB100368.pdf

The ISO standards can be viewed as aspirational objectives which an organisation aims to satisfy.  Not all of the ISO 9001 standards will be applicable to all businesses so it's a kind of pick n mix as you select what's needed.

Once in place and documentation created that pertains to the business - often referred to as the 'Quality Manual'.   Certification is achieved by submitting to audit by an accredited external auditor - never racking for the responsible employees and tedious for the rest in my experience...😉

Reading through the linked pdf just confirms my thoughts that it is just bull ****  and no real help to our business and by the time you ad iso22301, 45001 and 14001 then a policy on human trafficking, whistle-blowing, modern slavery, equal opportunities, diversity, inclusion, anti-discrimination and equal pay the we wont be able to pass the cost on to 99% of our customers as they would not be  interested in any of it.

[Cosmicblue]

Up until retiring back in February I worked for a US based software company that sold to manufacturers, and whilst ISO 9001 is not unusual in IT, we didn't hold the certificate and it was never an issue.

On the other hand we also maintained ISO27001 and ISO27018 - which are IT/Data Privacy standards and these were almost always requested.

[JohnfromUK]

It is one of those things that is 'in theory' beneficial to both the Company/Organisation holding it - and their customers.

In practice - it is expensive, quite tedious, and most companies actually do most of the stuff properly anyway, so rather 'pointless'.  It is however almost essential to do business with the vast majority of other reputable (and usually all larger) organisations.

Equally, companies doing things 'badly' will probably be those who won't want to join anyway.

Put very simply, you have a set down method/procedures of doing business in a responsible, traceable, honest and defined way which underpins the quality of your product/service.

You are then audited by external auditors to ensure that you are actually doing things in the ways and following the procedures you have set down.

As a simple example - if your business involves say making measurements on products to ensure they work correctly - you must state how the measurements are made, under what conditions, and with what measuring equipment, and be able to show that the calibration of that equipment used is to traceable standards.  When the measurement is made on a saleable item (say to check it meets it's specification), you must hold the records of the measurement, who did it, when, and with what measuring equipment - to the extent that in the event the customer complains, you can show that the items was tested fully to an agreed level before it left your factory, and by a trained/qualified person on calibrated equipment and you hold those records.

[discobob]

52 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

It is one of those things that is 'in theory' beneficial to both the Company/Organisation holding it - and their customers.

In practice - it is expensive, quite tedious, and most companies actually do most of the stuff properly anyway, so rather 'pointless'.  It is however almost essential to do business with the vast majority of other reputable (and usually all larger) organisations.

Equally, companies doing things 'badly' will probably be those who won't want to join anyway.

Put very simply, you have a set down method/procedures of doing business in a responsible, traceable, honest and defined way which underpins the quality of your product/service.

You are then audited by external auditors to ensure that you are actually doing things in the ways and following the procedures you have set down.

As a simple example - if your business involves say making measurements on products to ensure they work correctly - you must state how the measurements are made, under what conditions, and with what measuring equipment, and be able to show that the calibration of that equipment used is to traceable standards.  When the measurement is made on a saleable item (say to check it meets it's specification), you must hold the records of the measurement, who did it, when, and with what measuring equipment - to the extent that in the event the customer complains, you can show that the items was tested fully to an agreed level before it left your factory, and by a trained/qualified person on calibrated equipment and you hold those records.

I wonder if @Old Boggy is ISO accredited   as I sit here with one of his bottle openers in front of me!!

 

[merseamal]

On 16/05/2023 at 17:36, bluesj said:

Anyone understand it or can point me in the direction of some one the does?

Warning other iso questions may be coming.

I’m an IRCA certified lead auditor for 9001, ran a constancy for years getting companies accredited but have shut it down, I’ve not read any of this thread, just your initial post, if you’re sorted fine, if not feel free to let me know, message me and I’ll happily have a call for free to let you know the easiest route, pitfalls to avoid and I’ll even email you a load of templates 👍🏻

[miki]

I was BE EN ISO9001 2000, well my company was.
It cost me a huge amount of time and money and created mahoosive amounts of paperwork and registers and lists and although it helped me impliment some useful  proceedures most of it (99.999%) was a complete and utter waste of time and effort.

We (my 3 staff and I) each spent probably 2 or 3 hours a day building reports and paperwork trails...
It was and is a complete waste of resource.
Large companies spend thousands of man hours and tens of thousands of pounds maintaining it and all it does is clog up the day to day operations with paperwork.
If the company is doing a good job and providing a quality service (or quality goods) to its customers it doesn't help in the slightest, i'd say the opposite, it hinders.
If the company is producing **** and people are buying it then it doesn't make the quality better it just means that internally the company knows it's useless should it ever pay attention to the mountain of paperwork it creates looking at itself, which is often lies, lies and more lies anyway.

It was a fad. It made a lot of money for the BSi and thier associated companies and accredited consultants. A lot of money.
I firmly believe that we (as a group of companies that are and who maintain the wealth of the country) suffered. 9001-2000 spawned the 'customer satisfaction' survey'. It took compaies away from providing and delivering quality to managing thier ability to understanding quality based on a 'system'.
A system that no one ever really understood because it has no meaning.
It was no longer a pre-requisite that you knew what you were physicaly doing it became more of an issue that you kept records and generated reports and had meetings about the creation of the reports.

The larger the company the worse it gets.
Try responding to a tender from a government department, even local government or someone like BAE systems.

You will need hours and hours and hours to complete the paperwork and a team of contract writers and lawyers. The contract, should you win it, will then be subjected to extraordinary scrurtiny and you will need to negotiate a rise in costs to meet the ludicrous amounts of detailed reporting and paperwork that ISO9001 dictates and requires.

Avoid at all costs.

Provide a high quality, good value service and the customers will come to you ...

 

 

 

 

[bluesj]

10 hours ago, merseamal said:

I’m an IRCA certified lead auditor for 9001, ran a constancy for years getting companies accredited but have shut it down, I’ve not read any of this thread, just your initial post, if you’re sorted fine, if not feel free to let me know, message me and I’ll happily have a call for free to let you know the easiest route, pitfalls to avoid and I’ll even email you a load of templates 👍🏻

Thank you very much for the offer.    I don't think we will be going ahead with it for just 1 custom.

 

[amateur]

39 minutes ago, bluesj said:

Thank you very much for the offer.    I don't think we will be going ahead with it for just 1 custom.

 

.... is the sensible answer.

I worked for a small, specialist family company in the 1980s which did contract work for large utilities and other organisations. As more and more contracts required ISO 9001, we (or rather, I) had to formalise and write our production procedures.

It was a total ball-ache and inappropriate for such a small company. We wouldn’t have done it if we weren't playing with the big boys.