Iso 9000 : An International Standard For Quality Systems

The quality standards for an organisation set down the ‘rules’ around the products and services the business provides, the suppliers and services they use, how staff are recruited and trained and how customer service is dealt with.

ISO 9001:2008 sets the requirements on the quality procedures and their content in sections 4.2.3, 4.2.4, 8.2.2, 8.3, 8.5.2, and 8.5.3.

2. ISO 14001 is a set of standards that govern how a company designs service processes.

(International Organization for Standardization) ISO 9000, Quality Management Systems is a series of standards which outline how an organization may create and sustain an effective quality assurance system. The standards offer direction to organizations that want to ensure their services and products consistently meet customer

It is stated that becoming certified with the ISO 14000 is expensive. This is an investment that will pay for itself in the future. There will be revenue increases by becoming more attractive to consumers who support the environmentally safe production process. The ISO 14000 is an attempt to develop a widely accepted, uniform approach to certify that Benziger’s EMS is the best way to run a business for long term savings and making a positive contribution to the environment.

19.   Firms that wish to do business with the European Community can benefit from having a quality management system that needs ISO 9000 standards TRUE

“ISO is commonly known as ‘International Organization for Standardization’, the ISO 9001:2000 standard is used for quality systems audited by outside auditors. This standard is applicable for manufacturing companies not only for software. This standard is given based on the documentation, design, production, testing, servicing and other processes.” (Testing Excellence.com, 2009).

The evolution of quality would continue throughout World War 1 and 2 along with major reformations in quality control through the computer age in the 1980’s (Mitra, 2006, p. 5). A greater scale of cooperation was needed to develop and align common economic goals and strategic objectives. After the European Free Trade Association was founded in 1960 (Grønningsæter, 2014) and countless countries join throughout the decades; an agreement was signed in 1992 where the standardisation of quality control would be common amongst European markets. European Countries wishing to do business with one and other could now standardise their quality control and assurance through standardised means of practise; though this would be done through a standardisation agency.

Quality management is a structured approach to organizational management that seeks to improve the quality of products and services through continual refinements in response to continuous feedback (Gharakhani, 2013). Thus, it necessitates the consistent application of the appropriate human and technical processes, tools and techniques. A strategic quality strategy will be effective only through long-term commitment and dedicated application by executive management and all employees (Gharakhani, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to converse on implementing successful quality improvement practices within organizations to help achieve viable quality management. Further, this paper also highlights the conditions that must be in place such as management commitment, employee involvement, communication, and continuous improvement for successful quality management to be aligned with ISO 9000.

In the present scenario, it has become important for the firms to follow ISO regulations for their long term survival as they provide technological, economic and societal benefits. In the present report, there will be discussion on the impact of ISO regulations on stakeholders and way in which ISO 14001 and AA1000 regulations protect the stakeholders. Along with that, example of this in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will also be explained.

ISO 13485:2003 is an International Organizational for Standardization published in 2003. This international standard requires specifications for a quality management system where an organization needs to provide for designing or manufacturing medical devices. These requirements are essential for any organization that provides services that are related to medical devices disregarding the type or the size of the organization.

ISO 9001 however requires top management to establish responsibilities and authorities within the company, including establishment of an ISO 9000 management representative from within the company.

Global competitiveness had increased the need to invest more into the efficiency of management and importance of having and understanding globalized standards (Aba and Badar 42). The ISO 9000 was created in 1987 and is a series of quality management standards. The ISO 9000 standards is so malleable that they are updated and changed roughly every three years since their endorsement (Aba and Badar 42). Because the ISO is versatile, certified companies are guaranteed exemplar standards being implemented regularly. Quazi and Padibjo (1998) stated that certified companies saw an improvement in their quality and an increase in their sales and market share (as cited in Aba and Badar 45). A benefit of ISO 9000 is that it highlights an effective system of quality that is an abetment in eliminating errors which in turn saves money (Aba and Badar 43-44). On reviews of a financial and scale efficiency, it was revealed that ISO certified businesses are more efficient than businesses that are not certified (Aba and Badar 45). The ISO set the foundation for company standards and established fundamental properties for further research in developing prosperous quality assurance programs.

The ISO 9000 series developed by the International Organization for Standardization includes requirements of a QMS (9001) and guidelines to make a QMS more effective and efficient (9004) (van den Heuvel, Koning, Bogers, Berg & van Dijen, 2005). In 2008, the International Organization for Standardization clarified the language in the 9001 standards but it remained comparable to the 2000 version (Hunt, 2008). The standards are being updated in 2015 and

ISO, known for developing standards for many disciplines of business, also developed standards for healthcare; in 1996, a hospital in Louisiana was the first American hospital to adopt ISO 9001 (Bird, 2001). Prior to this inception by the Louisiana hospital, the reviewed article, published on October 10th, 2001 and titled “ISO 9000 guidelines for the health care sector," revealed that a group of healthcare officials dubbed the International Workshop Agreement (IWA) developed the first quality management system for healthcare titled Quality Management Systems-Guidelines for Process Improvements, which used many standards and processes from the well-known ISO 9000 standards (Bird, 2001). The guidelines developed by the IWA