ISO 9000 full form is “International Organisation for Standardisation 9000”
ISO 9000 meaning
The set of international standards of quality management and quality assurance.
These standards are meant to maintain customers’ experience by helping organisations continuously updating their internal processes and operations to maintain quality standards of their products and services.
Let’s discuss in detail about ISO 9000-
What is ISO 9000?
ISO 9000 is family of standards that focuses on ‘quality of products and services.’
ISO 9000 offers a framework of quality management system- establish, implement, maintain and improve. This framework ensures to meet customer expectations and enhances their satisfaction.
How many Standards are Included in the ISO 9000 family?
The core standards included in the ISO 9000 family are-
- ISO 9001:2015- Requirements- Must specify ‘requirements’ specified in standards
- ISO 9000: 2015- Fundamental and vocabulary- summary of core principles and concepts
- ISO 9004:2018- Quality of an organisation- guidance to organisations for achieving overall performance standards and sustained success
- ISO 19011:2018- Guidelines for auditing management- guidelines for auditing management systems
- ISO 10005:2018 -Guidelines for quality plans- guides to develop, review, acceptance, application and revision of quality plans
- ISO 10007:2017 – Guidelines for configuration management- guides to implement systems
ISO 9000 Example
Let’s understand ISO 9000 in detail with the help of example.
Take example of organisation offer Fintech product to sell and buy stocks in Indian stock market. To comply with standards of ISO 9000, companies must maintain the quality of their mobile app right from design to delivery.
You must ensure security and confidentiality of user’s database, user experience of app, navigation menu and other standards as per requirements.
Your quality assurance framework must include detailed processes for checking and testing quality, improving and optimising strategies to ensure customer satisfaction.
What is the Purpose of the ISO 9000 Standards?
The purpose of the ISO 9000 standards is majorly customer experience.
There are few others, let’s discuss them below:
- Customer Satisfaction: While using any product or service, customers have certain pre-set expectations related to quality. So, ISO 9000 strives to keep up and go beyond those expectations
- Steady Improvement: Nothing is perfect, there is always a scope of improvement. ISO 9000 standards helps organisations to always look back to their quality framework and address gaps, if any for their customers
- Effective Operations: Without clear procedure, there would be no quality management. Thus, ISO 9000 has the purpose to encourage organisations to document their processes and operations for quality assurance
- Globally Accepted: Since ISO 9000 standards are globally accepted, their compliance offers global market access to organisations.
How many Quality Management Principles are defined in ISO 9000?
Seven quality management principles are defined in ISO 9000. These principles are:
- Customer focus
- Leadership
- People’s engagement
- Process approach
- Continuous improvement
- Evidence-based decision making
- Relationship management
What is the Process for Obtaining ISO 9000 Certification?
Let’s understand the step-by-step process of obtaining ISO 9000 certification:
Step 1: Detailed understanding of ISO 9000 certification
Before getting the certification, you are required to understand specifics and attributes needed to gain that ISO certification. You can visit their official website to have a clear view.
Step 2: Design and record processes at your organisation
Design processes as per standards required for compliance of quality management. After designing, evaluate every process and modify if needed for improvement
Step 3: Implement system
Once you evaluate and are sure of the processes, configure them in your organisational structure. Upskill/ reskill your workforce, communicate and collaborate, and make sure your processes are aligned with ISO 9000 certification
Step 4: Collect the evidence
The regulatory bodies do not believe words, but evidence. So, as an organisation, you must collect evidence of quality management in the form of excel sheets, videos or any other documents that can that your quality management system is aligned with ISO 9000 standards.
Step 5: Auditing Process
Once you have submitted your evidence, initial evaluation by regulatory bodies will start. Once you get through the process, their auditors will schedule your on-site visit to audit your quality management system.
From auditing your quality maintenance processes to the end product, everything will be thoroughly checked by auditors. As per their findings, they’ll make reports to sum up everything and if your organisation matches the relevant standards.
Step 6: Get Certified!
Once processes are set, requirements are met, evidence is submitted, audit is completed, and reports are sent- and everything is on point, then organisation will issue ISO 9000 certification to you.
This certification will enhance the loyalty of customers and will help you to back the quality management system of your products and services.
How does ISO 9000 Certification Benefit Organizations?
ISO 9000 is quality management standards aim to improve efficiency of businesses and customer experience.
There are three major benefits to organisations-
- Increase in productivity as people will work in structured flow,
- Reduce un-necessary costs as once the workflow has been decided, there is minimal scope of leakage
- Ensure quality of processes and products as there would be pre-defined quality management system
In short, ISO 9000 certification helps increase the integrity and confidence of businesses. When they start delivering quality, their ROI and revenues will automatically improve.