Showing posts with label ISO 9001. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ISO 9001. Show all posts

Monday, May 16, 2011

ISO 9001 Standard Quality Manual Template

The quality manual is the necessary cornerstone for any business venturing out on the ISO 9001:2008 accreditation route as it exhibits top management’s determination to managing an useful quality management system. The quality manual is a type of most essential document which provides the right impression to clients, staff, inspectors and all the parties interested in your company, about your company’s efforts to satisfy all their clientele’s needs. People through your company will relate to it whenever they prefer to find the big picture of the system, or exactly what guidelines have been organized. You can save your valuable time and hard earned money with the quality manual template we offer you. If you really compile the quality manual, you will easily comprehend and apply ISO 9001:2008, which is one of the best methods to do so.By reading by the needs one-by-one and assigning each prerequisite a specific document, process or technique that exists within your company, you will get that over half of the demands have already been resolved. Quality manual makes the relation, between the process and the documents, an official one. Format and content Write your quality manual to ensure that it works for you, for your company and also the manner you work, it is totally your selection however generally make sure that it supports your organisation’s targets. The quality manual should not contain any confidential or proprietary information as it should be readily available to third party auditors and customers. You should also ensure that a clear distinction is made between the contents of the quality manual and the procedures. The quality manual identifies the intention of top management for the operation of the quality management system, whilst the operations explain how these kind of purposes are integrated. There are three things that must be included in the quality manual:

1. The probability of the quality management system such as details of the validation of any exclusions

2. For quality management system, the procedures should be standard or should be mentioned in them

3. A explanation of the discussion between the procedures of the quality management system Who will use your Quality Manual and why?

In general, the clients and the prospective customers need it in order to know how your company system meets their requirements. If your quality manual includes two pages, it may not motivate trust that your system is strong enough to be an useful quality management system. Customers and Clients want assurance that you know how to plan, implement, and control the processes that affect their products or service delivery. The third party inspectors will b interested to know how your company meets their standard needs and also if perhaps the quality management system is useful in accomplishing your organization’s targets. Auditors will use the quality manual as a guide to help out discover and also form the purpose facts that they have to find in exhibition of your company’s compliance with the standard. Internal inspectors can review and inspect their own company for their needs rather than referring to standard documents from external sources. Management ought to be able to determine, from the manual, how the numerous processes and also systems have interaction, and at a high level what policies and methods have been established to maintain and control the processes and systems . The quality manual is usually presented to fresh recruits to familiarize themselves with the organization’s quality management system and also the manuals are often used as an in-house training resource. Most importantly, your quality manual ought to not sit on a dirty shelf or be hidden in an obscure position on the computer network; it is an active and powerful document that requires coverage in order for it to grow and also improve. Please click on the links below to learn more about Quality Manual Templates and view some free examples.

Friday, October 29, 2010

ISO 9001 Standards & ISO 14001 Standards

In order to assist organizations to have a full understanding of the new ISO 9001:2008, it may be useful to have an insight on the revision process, how this revision reflects the inputs received from users of the standard, and the consideration given to benefits and impacts during its development.

Prior to the commencement of a revision (or amendment) to a management system standard, ISO/Guide 72:2001 Guidelines for the justification and development of management system standards recommends that a “Justification Study” is prepared to present a case for the proposed project and that it outlines details of the data and inputs used to support its arguments. In relation to the development of ISO 9001:2008 user needs were identified from the following:

-the results of a formal “Systematic Review” on ISO 9001:2000 that was performed by the members of ISO/TC 176/SC2 during 2003-2004
-feedback from the ISO/TC 176/Working Group on “Interpretations”
-the results of an extensive worldwide “User Feedback Survey on ISO 9001 and
The Justification Study identified the need for an amendment, provided that the impact on users would be limited and that changes would only be introduced when there were clear benefits to users.

The key focuses of the ISO 9001:2008 amendment were to enhance the clarity of ISO 9001:2000 and to enhance its compatibility with ISO 14001:2004.

A tool for assessing the impacts versus benefits for proposed changes was created to assist the drafters of the amendment in deciding which changes should be included, and to assist in the verification of drafts against the identified user needs. The following decision making principles were applied:

1) No changes with high impact would be incorporated into the standard;

2) Changes with medium impact would only be incorporated when they provided a correspondingly medium or high benefit to users of the standard;

3) Even where a change was low impact, it had to be justified by the benefits it delivered to users, before being incorporated.

The changes incorporated in this ISO 9001:2008 edition were classified in terms of impact into the following categories:

-No changes or minimum changes on user documents, including records

-No changes or minimum changes to existing processes of the organization

-No additional training required or minimal training required

-No effects on current certifications

The benefits identified for the ISO 9001:2008 edition fall into the following categories:

-Provides clarity

-Increases compatibility with ISO 14001.

-Maintains consistency with ISO 9000 family of standards.

-Improves translatability.

Audit Of Electronic Documents In ISO 9001 Standards

Audit Of Electronic Documents In ISO 9001 Standards

Electronic documents that establish management system policies and procedures can be in a variety of file formats depending on the software applications that are utilized by the organization to generate the documents. Electronic file formats include, Text, HTML, PDF, etc. Spreadsheets and databases formats are also considered to be electronic “documents” subject to the control elements of the management system to being audited.

Given the relative ease with which users can now create electronic spreadsheets and other electronic documents, auditors (either internal or external) should ensure that policies governing the controls that apply to management system documentation in-general are also employed for electronic documents through appropriate procedures.

Organizations need to employ suitable and effective methods within the electronic environment for ensuring the adequate review, approval, publication and distribution of its management system documentation. These should be consistent with the methods for the development and modification of electronic documents.

In many cases document control measures may also be standard features of software applications used for their creation. Therefore auditors should understand these application-specific controls to the degree that these are utilized as a basis for conformance to the applicable management system standard.

Given the increased capacity to modify, update, reformat and otherwise improve documents within an electronic-based management system, auditors should pay particular attention to control elements such as document identification and document revision level.

As electronic media facilitates an increased rate of document modifications, auditors should verify that the controls being employed for the management of obsolete documents are considered within the organizations’ document control policies and procedures.

Auditors should verify that electronic-based documentation exists to provide orientation to users with regard to the functional and control aspects associated with electronic documents. Additionally, “Point-of-use” requirements associated with the applicable management system standards will typically be addressed in part by the organization’s document access policies. Auditors should understand the organization’s policies and procedures regarding user privileges as these become important factors for properly realizing the organization’s processes.

External electronic communication with suppliers, customers and other interested parties may involve the exchange of documents. Given that these external documents may contain key parameters that specify the functioning of the organization’s processes, auditors should verify the degree to which these documents are formally introduced and controlled within the electronic-based management system.

How To Prepare ISO 9001 Standards Audit Check List

How To Prepare ISO 9001 Standards Audit Check List

There are a few steps to prepare ISO 9001 Standards Check List, namely:

1. Apply the concept of Plan Do Check Act (PDCA). This PDCA concept is applied at the Quality Management System and the process levels.

2. Convert the question to requirement raised by QMR or the QMS Committee which derived from theISO 9001 standards. In this case, several questions can lead to one single requirement.

3. To edit those questions to suit the process that is to be audited. For example, you are going to audit the Purchasing/Procurement Department and you’re sitting down with the Audit Team trying to come up with relevant questions.

The main objective in auditing any process is to extract adequate information and evidence in order to verify that the process is conformant to the ISO 9001 requirements and that, it is effective in achieving its objectives. As an auditor, you need to be able to investigate, assess and verify the conformity and effectiveness of a given process, in terms of its planning, implementation, monitoring & measurement and improvement. As a Lead Auditor, preparing your Audit Team for the actual audit is crucial in ensuring success of the audit excercise. There is no better way to do that than by developing the audit questions with them.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Implementing ISO 9001 Standards

Implementing ISO 9001 standards

If you have your own business and now you are looking for ISO 9001 certification for quality standards for business to make your business products more reliable to the customers. To be in the market for any business, it needs quality and for quality any business needs to follow quality standards, so ISO 9001 Standards developed many quality standards as per different -different business areas.

ISO 9001 Standards is a generic quality standard and can be applied to any organization but before applying it, a process starts with pre-assessment audits and passes through on-going maintenance. The process of implementing ISO 9001 includes identifying, collecting and organizing the information required for certification.

For implementing ISO 9001 standards, any organization needs to hire a consultant because detailed knowledge of ISO standards is essential before successfully applying it. A consultant will analyze your organization structure, your products and their standards and will make a complete plan as per ISO standards for your organization.To hire a consultant is easiest way because they have complete knowledge of ISO standards and they perform various activities like provides class room training to your business employee about ISO 9000 standards

An ISO consultant performs the various activities and explains the course objectives :

• understand the purpose of ISO 9000: 2005, ISO 9001: 2008, ISO 9004: 2000, ISO 19011: 2002 etc. standards and their interrelationship

• describe the purpose of Quality Management Systems and 8 Quality Management Principles

• Interpret the ISO 9001: 2008 in the context of audit

•Plan and conduct an audit in accordance with guidelines as per ISO 19011: 2002, gather objective evidence via various methods and determine conformity to the requirements of Quality Management Systems

• Develop understanding of Roles & Responsibilities of Lead Auditors

Hiring a Consultant is a better and easiest way to implement ISO in your organization.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

ISO 9000 Standards

ISO 9000 Standards - ISO 9000 Standard Software
The term ISO9000 Standards refers to a set of quality management standards. ISO9000 currently includes three quality standards: ISO 9000:2005, ISO 9001:2000, and ISO 9004:2000. ISO 9001:2000 presents requirements, while ISO 9000:2005 and ISO 9004:2000 present guidelines. All of these are process standards (not product standards).

ISO 9001 Standard 's purpose is to facilitate international trade by providing a single set of standards that people everywhere would recognize and respect.

The ISO 9001 Standards apply to all kinds of organizations in all kinds of areas. Some of these areas include manufacturing, processing, servicing, printing, forestry, electronics, steel, computing, legal services, financial services, accounting, trucking, banking, retailing, drilling, recycling, aerospace, construction, exploration, textiles, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, pulp and paper, petrochemicals, publishing, shipping, energy, telecommunications, plastics, metals, research, health care, hospitality, utilities, pest control, aviation, machine tools, food processing, agriculture, government, education, recreation, fabrication, sanitation, software development, consumer products, transportation, design, instrumentation, tourism, communications, biotechnology, chemicals, engineering, farming, entertainment, horticulture, consulting, insurance, and so on.