•Continual Improvement
A common perception of the requirement 'continual improvement' contained within the ISO9001 Standard (8.5.1) is that in some way it relates to an improvement of product or service. Some more serious thought might reveal this to be a misinterpretation, as the document is not a product or service specification, but a system for controlling the quality of the product or service through the output. Title - ' ISO9001:2000 Quality management systems - Requirements'. So, in so far as the Standard...
•ISO 14001 and Environmental Management
There is an increasing emphasis on the management of environmental factors affecting our personal lives, our community and the world at large. As individuals, it is difficult to see how our contribution can have any effect on the grand scheme of things, but equally, any large scale change comes about as a consequence of numerous small changes. Individual initiatives tend to be focussed more on cash savings than on the general good - no harm in that, but overall, no great benefit either.
At...
•ISO9001 & Contract Review
In an attempt to define an effective set of management processes, ISO 9001:2000 has a section devoted to the management of the contract process. Earlier versions of the Standard (e.g. ISO9001:1994) defined this activity as Contract Review, a clear indication of its nature and purpose. ISO 9001:2000 has located it in a section (7.2.2) "Review of requirements related to the product". In both cases the intention was to ensure that organisations were able to, and required to, clearly assess the...
•ISO9001 & Risk Management
In every human endeavour there is an element of risk; personal, project or financial, or a combination of them all. The task of the responsible individual is to identify the risk and act accordingly. We all do these 'risky' things, almost daily, aware that we are taking a risk. Rather than avoiding risk we become adept at identifying it and having a strategy for dealing with it if the risk materialises. This is what risk management is about, and is a skill that is important in virtually every...
•ISO9001 - Eliminating the Quality Department
Wherever the ISO9001 Standard is discussed, the one certain item will be that of Improvement. Most often considered is the Continual Improvement requirement of the ISO Standard (section 8) or possible improvements to the Standard itself. This latter particularly at the present time as we await the publication of ISO9001:2008.
Seldom heard is any discussion on the fundamentals of Quality Management as it is determined by individual organisations, both within and without the ISO 9001...
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