Businesses exist to solve problems in society. In the course of providing solutions, there is often a system that manages the quality of outcomes. ISO 9001 is an internationally recognized standard that helps businesses achieve quality standards that meet the expectations of all interested parties. The standard requires that there is an understanding of customers’ expectations. Customer requirements determine the product or service.

 To achieve this, an organization must:

• Create a Process Culture

By managing the different parts of a business as a whole, rather than discrete parts, organizations are able to align operations for greater efficiency. Measuring and evaluating those interrelated processes also helps to identify areas that could be improved.

• Plan It, Do, Check it and Act to Correct

The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle helps promote a process-driven culture across an organization. This is a proven way of ensuring you plan, resource, and manage your processes and their interactions effectively.

• Take Care of Quality

Quality differs from one organization to the other. So, the planning phase of ISO 9001 implementation is important in understanding the context of the organisation. Besides, in this phase, a quality policy is defined, and quality objectives are set. Quality is checked against the quality objectives set.

 In the DO phase, the processes are implemented to meet the quality objectives. The CHECK phase involves monitoring and evaluation through audits and a review by the management of the organization. Its aim is to confirm that requirements are being met. Where any deviations are found, they are corrected in the ACT phase.

 Why Would any Organization Consider ISO 9001?

ISO 9001 is an approach to maintaining quality. It enables a business to continually meet the needs and expectations of all its interested parties. The current version of the standard, ISO 9001:2015, takes a risk-based approach to managing quality.

 If you could focus on one element of quality in your organization, what would it be? Your answer to that question is the thing that if fixed will bring about the biggest improvement. What steps can you take to fix it?

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Lucy Moragwa is a Business Process Analyst with dynamic experience spanning several industries including construction, technology, retail, media, advertising, and branding. She is specialised in helping organisations develop operational efficiency and increase revenue, business process improvement and using root cause analysis to identify issues and develop process improvements. The heart of her work is to help organisations achieve cost savings through exceptional planning and implementation of business processes.