ISO 9001:2015 has been crawling in slowly (a bit like GDPR) and for most registered businesses the outdated certification was last updated in 2008, so although a few years old – the latest certification criteria has been a long road for most to adopt and implement.
What is ISO9001?
The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organisations.
ISO 9001 Quality Management System ensures we are providing products and services to meet the need of the customer and statutory, looks for ways to improve customer satisfaction/demonstrating conformity to the quality management system.
ISO 9001 ensures that when it comes to pitching/tendering for jobs, you should feel more comfortable knowing that your project will be in safe and qualified hands.
Why Do Impact Media want to be ISO9001 certified?
One of our guiding principles is quality over quantity. We constantly dedicate time to quality assurance and testing as well constantly improving our processes and the way we handle and deliver projects.
How can we improve efficiency, productivity or even increase that dirty word profit? With taking a focus on how our business is successfully run and in documenting everything, we can easily onboard new staff members who can simply follow a set of clear instructions and procedures.
Consistency is key. Although this may not sound exciting, but following the same processes ensures our team develop muscle memory, and the way we handle every process within our business becomes a habit not a chore.
When this is all correctly followed our team can be far more efficient with their time, meaning they achieve a higher level of productivity. We save time, the client obtains a speedier outcome and at a higher quality with fewer errors.
What Changes Does The New Update Bring?
The standards are revised between every 5-7 years. Businesses face new challenges and the way we all operate evolves constantly, it is only right that the procedures and systems we use to maintain quality – moves with it.
Who Are The Auditors?
Our internal auditor is me! (Crystal) and I ensure that all of our policies are kept up to date, management meetings are held and minuted, maintain the manual including internal audits & keep everything in place following the procedures set by the management team.
Our quality manager is Martin and he oversees all of the work that goes into the manual, including the internal audits and approves everything before it is added into the manual.
We are audited externally yearly by a company called CQS (Certifed Quality Systems)
Summary
ISO 9001 ensures that we are organised and our team are not wasting time replicating continuous errors in their workflow. It is ingrained in our team to avoid over estimating time as well as under estimating time too.
We always look to invest in anything that increases productivity or efficiency and we believe that the ISO 9001 certification helps us address both.
So until next year when we are externally audited again, we will continue to keep working towards the standard and should you wish to request any of our polices as your supplier for your own ISO standards please get in touch with Crystal.
