This month, Brook passed its external ISO9001:2015 audit – 3 year recertification visit – with NO non conformances.
Congratulations all round!!. But ‘Whooopy-do!!!’ – so what???
At the risk of parodying the old Monty Python sketch;
“Besides a ‘plaque on the wall’, what else did ISO9001 ever give us???”
As we went through our final Management Review of the year before the audit (we actually find it such a useful exercise that we truly do undertake it quarterly!) we noted some of the benefits we’d got from operating the system (that’s in addition to the reductions in effort on tenders and ITT’s where we just “tick the box”).
The benefits of the ISO Quality Management system
First thing was the robustness of our underlying strategy/plan, developed by our own “strategic compass” methodology. In this methodology;-
- We’d identified stakeholders and how we satisfied their requirements.
- We’d analysed the external environment, and identified opportunities and threats
- We’d looked at internal factors and whether they were strengths and weaknesses
This work had fed straight into the “Interested Parties” (Stakeholders) and “Risk Register” (Threats) sections in our QMS.
Our QMS “Risk Register” then recently provided us with 8 scenarios from the Covid pandemic which actually affected us, and for which we had already considered and thought through potential mitigation, and hence we’d swiftly put “Plan B” in place when needed.
Our “interested parties register” also gave us a “work to list” on vital Stakeholder communications at this time to maintain relationships and show that we were “open for business”
Our Strategic plan gave us our considered “Hows” – i.e. the “vital few” topics which we needed to give emphasis to in order to achieve the ambitious targets we set ourselves.
And we’d used these topics to establish a set of SMART objectives with targets along with a “Correlation Matrix” linking these “targets” back to “objectives” and back to the “Hows” in our strategy. These targets and objectives along with the correlation matrix are on our office wall at the side of the Quality Policy as a constant reminder of what we need to do.
Our ISO Audit: our findings
We’d regularly audited how all the system was working, and we also collate Client feedback on all our projects, along with our ISO certification consultants’ feedback and also feedback from our Support Agency Partners – and where we’d identified better ways of doing things we’d changed the system.
We’d done these internal audits, and had 0 – yes zero!! non conformances in the last 3 months, zero Complaints, and an average customer rating of 98%
What ISO9001:2015 can do for you
We review the skills and performance of our Staff and ISO Consultants against the requirements we considered necessary to achieve the Strategy, and we develop our people accordingly. We’d taken this into account in our Staff and Consultant recruitment plans. We have recruited specific specialist skills in our Consultants like 6 Sigma and Wellbeing, which we knew were required to achieve our Strategic aims, and this also guides us to the skills and experience requirements are for our latest and current recruitment exercise.
Amongst all this, we had also; moved office, enacted our succession plan and changed MD, and also successfully bid to deliver several new frameworks – and we have also been able to increase turnover by 35%, with another 35% growth planned for the coming year.
So that is what it gives us, because our QMS is not considered a burden on our time, it actually guides the way, and facilitates good practice which leads to profitable growth as we achieve our strategic plans.
How Brooks’ ISO Consultants can help you
We’re happy to work with Clients who (like us) are keen to see the benefits that a well-run Quality Management System can bring. Please Contact us for more details of how implementing a QMS for the right reasons can be beneficial to your organization.
Get in touch with our team today for more information.
