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Posted By Andrew Robertson-Böber
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has gone for thr ISO 9001 or the ISO 14001. Generally the pros and cons of the whole experience.
We have been discussing the undertaken of these process at work and I would rather guage other practitioners experiences before walking blindly into this.
B
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By Barrie (Badger) Etter
Andrew
I'll start by asking some simple questions.
1. Why does your company want an accreditation?
2. Are your customers 'demanding' that you have an accreditation?
3. Do you have a semblance of a system manual in place all ready?
The first two questions only you can answer your self and form part of your P&C's. For the third if yes then you should be part way there. What your company has to think of (if a small sme) is can you afford the financial outlay on the road to accreditation. Then the regular twice yearly visits for which you may end up with, for maintenance of the system.
If no system manual in place then look to the Brit Std Project Acorn not sure of the no. poss 8855 or 8555 which will point you in the right direction for building a systems manual in stages. Whilst its intended for enviro manual it can be used for the others as well.
If you build the manual well enough, it'll leave the accreditation auditor with not much to do as I found through experience.
There is potentially a lot more I could put in, but what you asked is a large question.
Hope some of my answers help.
Badger
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By Michael Riley
Hi Andrew
I am responsible for maintaining OHSAS 18001 and ISO 14001 certification and managing the systems in a business. We also have ISO9001 and I have worked as a Quality Assurance Rep.
Systems is the key word here, you need more than a manual full of processes, there must be an active commitment in the business to following the processes and manage the system to achieve continual improvement. If you gain the certificate without having a good system and adequate resources you are in for a hard time to maintain it, it really is worth getting the fundamentals right at the start.
Essential preliminaries are: commitment of senior management (they need to undertand it is not a one-off trophy but an ongoing commitment for the business), good access to legislation updates and summaries, a toolkit to help you work through the certification process and then maintain the system, a thorough gap analysis and a good working relationship with the third party auditing company.
These certificates are important to your stakeholders and provide confidence that you are managing risk effectively.
Mike
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