ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System

Many of the leading companies worldwide have registered to the ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System. The Quality Management System looks at the various aspects of the organization's management that directly impact the Quality of Products and Services provided to the firm's Customers.

This standard will help you meet your quality targets and customer requirements more efficiently and effectively. Research shows that ISO 9001 registered companies gain an immediate competitive advantage over their rivals, and consistently achieve more sales and profits

It is based on the following 8 principles:

• 1. CUSTOMER FOCUS: Since organizations depend on customers, their needs must be understood and met with the aim of enhancing customer satisfaction.
• 2. LEADERSHIP: Every organization must establish its strategic objectives and then create an environment to achieve its goals. Leadership is about enforcing the best way of working whenever possible.
• 3. INVOLVEMENT OF PEOPLE: An organization comprises of people. Employees at all levels must be fully involved to achieve organizational goals.
• 4. PROCESS APPROACH: A process is a series of steps and actions necessary for transforming inputs to outputs. ISO advocates the need to identify and manage processes to achieve greater efficiency.
• 5. SYSTEM APPROACH TO MANAGEMENT: The systems approach looks at the organization as a collection of inter-related processes that need be managed to improve effectiveness and efficiency. The benefit of this system is that it provides staff with a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities. It also defines how specific activities should operate within the rest of the system.
• 6. FACTUAL APPROACH TO DECISION MAKING: Organizations must base their decisions on logical or intuitive data that has been analyzed. This requires rigorous documentation of key activities.
• 7. CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT: Every activity, every process, every procedure can be improved. ISO encourages the culture for continual improvement within the organization.
• 8. MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL SUPPLIER RELATIONSHIPS: Suppliers are an important stakeholder within the ISO context as very it is the suppliers who create value for the customers. Therefore it is important to ensure that supplier relationships be managed in a mutually beneficial manner.