ISO 9001 - Quality
What is ISO 9001?
In today’s competitive world, consumers are increasingly demanding and set higher quality limits. Those who can provide this are certainly more competitive and consumers trust them more.
ISO 9001 Quality Management System is the most popular quality improvement standard in the world, with over a million certified organizations in 180 countries worldwide. It is the only standard in the 9000 family of standards published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that can be used for conformity assessment purposes. ISO 9001 also serves as the basis for many other sector standards, including ISO 13485 (for medical devices), IATF 16949 (for the automotive industry) and AS/EN 9100 for the aerospace industry).
The competitiveness of an organization on the international market is determined by the quality of its business processes. The quality management system is an effective instrument for managing the quality requirements that are placed before a modern, innovative organization.
Why is ISO 9001 important?
ISO 9001 certification proves the organization’s ability to consistently meet and exceed customer expectations. For this reason, many customers require the supplier to be ISO 9001 certified to reduce the risk of purchasing a bad product or service. Organizations that have certified their system according to ISO 9001 will be able to achieve significant improvements in organizational efficiency and product quality through the reduction of scrap and defects and increased productivity.
- Saving money and time – through the application of quality management that increases organizational efficiency, productivity and profitability.
- Risk reduction – consistently reaching the quality level defined in the standard, which ensures that products and services will meet user expectations.
The standard promotes the orientation of the organization towards a process approach in management. The advantage of this approach is reflected primarily in transparency and the possibility of improving planned processes, defining responsibilities and authorities within those processes, identifying information flows, methods used in the management system, identifying required resources and better control of business processes.
The advantage of the standard is that its introduction encourages companies to strive for continuous improvement in accordance with the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) principle, with special reference to the motivation of employees towards continuous improvements, as well as to corrective and preventive measures.