ISO 9001

History

The international standard ISO 9001:2000 is the base to establish, implement and certificate the quality management systems.
The main advantage of ISO standard is its generality. It directly results from the definition of quality which is related to management system of every organization without specifying branches. So that, every organization can implement ISO 9001 standard that is very popular in UE countries.
In September 2001 PKN - Polish Committee for Standardization established the new standard PN-EN ISO 9001:2001 which replaced earlier used PN-ISO 9001:1996, PN-ISO 9002:1996 and PN-ISO 9003:1996.

General requirements

"ISO 9001:2000 - general requirements" formulates some rules that have to be fulfilled to gain company's goals. The rules are as follows:

• Focusing on the Client - understanding present and future needs of the Clients, foreseeing the Clients' expectations,
• Leadership - goals, the way of company's activities, internal company's environment should be considered, staff commitment should be helpful to gain fixed goals,
• Staff commitment - complete commitment can be beneficial to the organization,
• Process approach - when resources and activities are managed as processes the fixed goals can be achieved more effective,
• System approach in management - it is important to describe the whole system as linkage between the individual processes as well as combination and interaction between them to operate more effectively and efficiently,
• Continual improvement - the main company's goal,
• Facts as the base to make a decision - effective decisions are based on analysis of data and information,
• Linkage between suppliers - beneficial linkage between suppliers and the organization can be helpful to generate profits.

To make the system coherent it should be:

• Established and controlled Quality Policy and quality objectives,
• Complied process approach in products realization,
• Controlled measurement of processes and organization's products,
• Established communication system between Clients and within the organization,
• Quality management systems should be coherent with management systems of whole organization.

It is worth applying ISO standard because:

• It can be adapted to every organization regardless kind of its production,
• It is adapted to present business realities,
• It is not formalized - it is not required as many documents as earlier,
• It helps to manage the company thanks to process approach.

Implementing quality management system and obtaining certificate in compliance with PN-EN ISO 9001:2001 can bring some advantages for instance:

• Improvement concerning organization and its management,
• Growth of prestige on local and international market,
• Continual improvement,
• Efficient flow of information,
• System management of resources,
• Prompt and effective problem identification and solution,
• Clarity of processes,
• Growth of staff conscious of company's goals.