How hard is it to get ISO 9001 certification?

We won’t utilise the word “hard,” to describe the ISO 9001 certification process. Instead, we would use the words “time-consuming and immersive.” The certification process is not time-consuming, as many consultancy services deliver the certificate in less than a month; however, the planning stages require a lot of careful deliberation.

Similarly, ISO 9001 certification is immersive because it requires business owners to fully commit to the process and put in a lot of effort. However, the good news is that your ISO 9001 certification process will be a breeze if you follow our recommendations. Let us discuss an ISO 9001 certificate, its benefits, the certification process and joint problems.

What is an ISO 9001 certificate?

ISO 9001 certificate is granted to organisations that clear a gruelling external audit of their Quality Management System (QMS). Acquiring this certificate demonstrates that you have specific quality policies, objectives and controls that help you deliver high-quality goods or services that exceed your customer’s expectations.

Benefits of ISO 9001

We are going to list the benefits of ISO 9001 so that you are convinced that your efforts will be worthwhile. As ISO 9001 focuses on quality management, all the benefits that it encores are related to product or service improvement. You acquire a more extensive customer base as your products and services become high-quality.

This leads to more significant profits and better opportunities. Moreover, the ISO 9001 logo is compelling in furthering your marketing efforts and enhancing your brand credibility. You can quickly expand your market base and test new waters in domestic and foreign markets. The list continues—the standard benefits your organisation internally.

Not only do your processes become leaner, but as a business owner or a manager, you gain a deeper understanding of how they operate. This helps you make better managerial decisions as you are now backed with insightful data instead of just making guesswork.

Furthermore, due to lighter processes and more prominent roles, employee productivity increases, and you can retain your best talent.

ISO 9001 certification process

The first step to acquiring the certificate is to read and understand the ISO 9001 standard. You must understand the ten clauses and how they apply to your organisation. So, you begin by going through the first three clauses to understand the terms, definitions and other normative references.

Then, you begin by describing the context of your organisation and the scope of your QMS. By adequately defining the scope of your QMS, including its limitations and boundaries, you are helping the auditor understand what they need to audit. If you spend adequate time during this stage, your certification process will become smoother.

In the next phase, you need to define the leadership commitment by creating a specific quality policy against which the entire organisation’s efforts will align and provide adequate resources to materialise this policy. Here, resources will not only include financial resources but will also teach managerial support and any training programmes.

This phase easily blends into the next one when you begin to outline the plan and how you will support it. In the planning phase, you need to create a plan to address risks and opportunities that will come your way as you attempt to achieve your quality objectives.

In the support phase, you will delineate the people, infrastructure, knowledge, communication and documented information needed to materialise your plan.

In the operation phase, you would be required to find out your customer requirements, design external providers, how you will deliver your products or services and post-delivery support.

This is followed by finally implementing your quality management system. After implementation, you need to evaluate its performance by analysing customer satisfaction.

Additionally, the analysis also includes internal auditing and management reviews. Lastly, improvement focuses on addressing nonconformities through corrective actions so that the QMS is trained for continual improvement.

If you want to learn more about the concept of internal audit and quality management system, you can read the following two very complete articles on our blog:
ISO 9001 internal audit
What is a quality management system

Common obstacles in the ISO 9001 certification process

The two common obstacles that make the ISO certification process “hard” are the documentation and the assessment of the QMS. Business owners do not have the expertise to align their documents as per the recommendations of ISO 9001.

Additionally, they need to gain real-world experience to implement corrective actions that can improve the performance of the QMS. Here, ISO 9001 consultants help you not only with your documentation but also help you troubleshoot your QMS.

ISO 9001 consultants are adept at conducting gap assessments, a powerful analytical tool that highlights the areas that are lacking per the standard’s recommendations. With their help, you can fix your QMS, improve its efficiency, align your documents, train your employees and maintain compliance.

As all the necessary “boxes” are ticked, your certification process runs smoothly. One of the constant concerns of Australian companies is the cost of obtaining ISO 9001 certification.

If you have such a concern, we suggest you read the article on iso 9001 certification cost Australia on our blog. In this article, we have examined ways to reduce the cost of certification.

Conclusion

The ISO 9001 certification process is relatively easy, but many people find it challenging because it requires a lot of planning and effort.

Hiring an ISO 9001 consultant alleviates a lot of pain from the certification process. If you are looking for iso 9001 consultant australia, just call 0061280056444. We will help you get your ISO 9001 certificate in the shortest possible time.