ISO 9001 demands effectiveness. For a defined management system to be ISO 9001 certified, it must be effectively implemented and it must effectively meet ISO 9001 requirements. Otherwise, conformity to the standard has effectively not been demonstrated. The problem: organizations failing to effectively demonstrate conformity to a basic ISO 9001 requirement nevertheless receive ISO 9001 certification. Continue reading
Take a look at the latest ISO certification statistics! There are a few interesting trends:
Organizations today face unprecedented challenges to increase productivity and performance. Having an effective internal audit system is an important tool that allows organizations to determine where key strengths and weaknesses exist within their processes. Once identified they can build on their strengths and allocate resources to improve the weaknesses. Continue reading
ISO 9001 is not working. Says who?
Top British ISO brass. Just recently, two high level officials from the UK spoke out about an effectiveness problem with ISO 9001. ISO 9001 is failing. The first suggests that quality professionals are failing, alluding to a compliance-based mind-set to auditing, while the second addresses this problem as a failure of organizations and auditors to understand and apply a process approach. Continue reading
You may think that you grasp the idea of risk and ISO management; but as you study risk in greater depth, you begin see it as a word of many colors. Here’s an example from ISO 19011:2011. It says that ISO management system auditors need to realize the risk associated with auditing. This includes the risk that comes with the audit program and auditing risk. In other words, there is a risk that the auditors are looking for and there is risk that comes in the process of doing the audit. Continue reading