ISO 9001

What is ISO 9001?

ISO 9001 is a standard used to manage quality within organizations to prevent issues that would impact the customer's experience with a product. Organizations use this standard to communicate the effort of guaranteeing a satisfactory experience with the product and give the customer confidence the product has been through quality testing best practices. The current version of ISO 9001 was released in 2015.

Why is ISO 9001 important?

Organizations that invest in this standard have products that have fewer quality issues like bugs or performance problems which increases customer satisfaction and can keep customer or technical support volumes lower. With higher quality products and happier customers companies are more likely to see return business as they set a solid product experience with their customers, better reviews because there are less issues with products, and a higher referral rate as customers become more likely to recommend products with less issues.

What are the principles of ISO 9001?

At the foundation of the ISO 9001 quality management system are eight core principles that focus on meeting customer requirements, customer needs, and customer satisfaction over simply following the requirements that business leadership outlines. These principles are:

Customer Focus

Being customer centric in your quality practices is one of the most important principles. This means understanding the customer’s expectations and requirements, so they can be verified and validated during quality testing.

Leadership ‍

Sometimes an organization’s leadership can struggle to communicate their initiatives and expectations downward. Companies with strong leadership establish a healthy work environment that can drive  teams and the organization toward quality goals that produce higher quality products. At Centercode, we often see companies engaging with us because a specific quality initiative has been set from the top down.

Engagement of People

ISO 9001 is all about engaging with your employees. Happier employees that are knowledgeable and dependable can produce a better experience for your customers. So, establishing a solid culture that respects and rewards individual employees is likely to retain better employees and produce better results.

Process Approach

Having standard processes enables a more consistent and predictable result from your quality systems. By joining these quality processes to form a system, organizations see higher efficiency and better outcomes.

Systematic Approach to Management

A systematic approach to management is a continuation of being process-driven. It focuses on understanding, learning, and managing all of the processes as a single system. By the connection of these processes and their joining into a system it makes way for the next core principle, continuous improvement.

Continual Improvement

This is a big one. By adopting an approach that’s focused on continuously improving your quality system and underlying processes, you can greatly enhance your outcomes. Identify where results are below expectations, so you can enhance that area’s processes to address your challenges. 

Evidence-Based Decision Making

Having data to make decisions for each of the other principles is extremely important. For example, data can provide indicators for what needs improvement or areas where employees experience friction. But it’s still important to identify underlying causes when making decisions, not just rely on the first convenient answer that the data provides.

Relationship Management

Depending on your company, you are likely to encounter partners, vendors, investors, or resellers that will benefit from having a relationship with your quality management system. Having access to their feedback and providing them clear direction is another element to producing better outcomes with your product.