How to get more out of your investment in a Quality Management System
How can you get more out of your investment in a Quality Management System? ISO 9004 could be the answer. So, what on earth does “Quality management – Quality of an organisation – Guidance to achieve sustained success (ISO 9004:2018)” mean?
Your Investment in Quality Management
You made the decision, then the commitment to an ISO 9001 Quality Management System and ultimately achieved registration. Well done! This demonstrates you have a basic framework that covers the key processes of your organisation. You also have a method for corrective action and improvements to be fed back into the system. In addition, you have the ‘badge’ that provides the entry criteria into the supply chain tendering competition for many sectors, typically larger corporations and specific business sectors.
What’s next?
What can you now do to achieve a greater and lasting impact upon the culture and rationale of the business?
One option is to consider the guidance and associated best practice that is wrapped up in the ISO 9004:2018 International Standard. It isn’t really possible to be externally audited or subsequently certified against this ‘sister’ standard to ISO 9001. However, there are a whole raft of issues and areas that can be of benefit:
- What does it mean and how to demonstrate good leadership practice
- The real requirements and expectations of Interested Parties
- Effective process measures (KPI) that flag performance/shortcomings and highlight areas for focused attention
- Performance effectiveness and evaluation
- An inventory of resources and what is really required for improvement and consistency.
If this is of interest, then why not talk to the team at Performance Plus? We are happy to provide ideas and support. We can even carry out a 1-day best practice audit against the recommendations and guidance from the ISO 9004 Standard. Ultimately, we can provide an ISO 9004 best practice certificate.
If you want to know how ISO 9004 can benefit your business, please contact us for a free initial discussion. You can send us a message using our ‘Contact Me’ form or call us on 01284 330400.
We work with small to medium size businesses across the East Anglia Region covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.