Why ISO is Important for Organizations?

WHAT IS ISO?

ISO was originated from the union of two organizations — the ISO (International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations) and the UNSCC (United Nations Standard Coordinating Committee).

In 1946 over 25 countries met at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London to create a new international organization, where the objective was to ‘facilitate the international coordination and unification of industrial standards’ From this the new organization ISO began operations in February 1947. The word ISO is derived from the Greek ISOS meaning ‘equal’.

As the International Organization for Standardization would translate differently across different languages it was decided that the short form name for the organization would be ISO.

Today the ISO has grown to a confederation of delegates representing over 150 countries and has published over 16,500 international standards. They meet on a regular basis to further develop new and existing management standards.

CORE PRINCIPLES OF ISO CERTIFICATION

Document Control: Issuing a document with a reference and version number to ensure that the right document, is in the right place, at the right time.

Record Control: A record is a completed document (see above). Record control is an efficient method of finding individual records. It can also refer to how you file, remove, archive and destroy individual records.

Internal Review: An in-depth review of your management system, to ensure you are on track for your end of year validation audit. This also ensures the company satisfies internal audit requirements laid out in the standard.

Non-Conformance: A non-conformance is when something happens within the business that wasn’t planned. This could be Internal E.g Out of date process/procedure, human error etc. External E.g customer complaints, supplier issues etc.

Corrective Action: A plan created by management to rectify a non-conformance (see above), and to prevent it from recurring

Preventative Action: An action to clarify and address potential risks to the business, with a view to reducing future non-conformances.

DO WE REALLY NEED ISO?

Are there any areas of your business you would like to improve?

Would you like to save time and money on recurring problems by resolving them permanently first time round?

Would you like to tender for contracts within your sector?

Would you like better utilization of your time though improved resource management?

Would you like to enhance the customer/supplier relationship by responding pro-actively to customer feedback?

Would you like to see an improvement in your internal efficiency?

Would you like to potentially reduce company on-going permit and insurance fees?

If you can answer yes to any of the above questions ISO Certification may be for you.

ISO BENEFITS

Here are the explanations of six main benefits and why they are important:

Improvement of credibility and image: By adopting internationally recognized standard and best practices, it improves organization image to the customers.

Improvement of customer satisfaction: With proper planning and process-oriented approach, an organization can strive better in order to meet customer requirements. By improving customer satisfaction, you will retain more repeat customers since happy and satisfied customers are the key to keeping customer loyalty. And such customers bring in additional revenues.

Better process integration: By looking at the overall process interactions through the process-driven approach, you will be able to more easily find improvements in efficiency and cost savings. This is done by eliminating the waste that can occur when processes are maintained without a view of the inefficiencies that can arise during process hand-off. The better process flow can also be used to drive efficiencies towards fewer errors and resulting reworks, which can improve cost savings.

Improvement on evidence-based decision making: By driving evidence-based decision making, you can be more focused on applying resources to the areas that will improve efficiencies and increase cost savings with less trial and error to find the right decision. In addition, by monitoring the process you are improving, you will be able to see how much improvement has happened based on the data.

Continual improvement culture: By adopting this Continual improvement culture to improve your processes and organizational output, you will find efficiencies and cost savings, including the use of systematic processes when problems occur in order to reduce the impact of the problem and increase the speed of recovery. By making this continual, improving year after year, the company can see continuing benefits from this.

Engagement of employees: Employees who are involved in the improvements of the processes they work with are happier and more engaged employees. Who better than the people working on the process to best identify the areas that need improvement, and to help to test and advance these improvements when they are implemented? Engaged employees are more productive and will help the company better improve and save, especially when they understand how the quality of the process depends on them.

In order to have more details over a call or face to face, you may write to us at [email protected]