The supply chain challenge
Supply chains make sense. They allow businesses to concentrate on what they're best at, whilst reaping cost savings and open new markets. However, these extended networks of suppliers create management headaches when it comes to co-ordination and ensuring consistent quality of delivery. What is needed is a way of ensuring all suppliers meet the same standards to avoid costly, time consuming, and brand damaging problems. The question is, do you know how your suppliers operate?
The solution: ISO 9001
Checking suppliers is both difficult and time consuming. Years ago, this was simply the way business was, but since the advent of a management standard called ISO 9001, things have become considerably more straight-forward.
It was UK Government who agreed a standard was needed to solve the needless duplications and chronic waste of money of suppliers being assessed by multiple customers. This resulted in the beginnings of the ISO 9001 standard, which has been revised multiple times since being published. The current version is called ISO 9001:2008, representing the last revision year.
ISO 9001 has since become popular largely because it is a generic standard. No matter what size or industry, the standard can be applied to any kind of organisation. Unsurprisingly then, ISO 9001 suits the requirements of a supply chain well, where different suppliers can provide wildly different services.
Nowadays, UK Government still requires their suppliers to meet quality standards, and often stipulates ISO 9001 within contract opportunities. But its not just the Public Sector insisting on the standard, the Private Sector has followed suit more recently, which has resulted in over 1,000,000 organisations achieving ISO 9001 to date.
What does ISO 9001 achieve?
When properly implemented, ISO 9001 gives customers confidence that their suppliers can consistently provide a service that meets expectations and conforms to legal regulations. Engrained into the standard is a commitment to quality, continuous improvement and customer care.
ISO 9001 helps organisations to develop, maintain and improve a Quality Management System (QMS). There are a range of requirements that the organisations must fulfil in order to be compliant. These requirements are wide-ranging, covering most aspects of how an organisation operates. How these requirements are met is done by creating various policies and processes.
Ensuring suppliers meet ISO 9001
To ensure a supplier meets the requirements of ISO 9001, the normal course of action is to insist on third party certification. An independent Certification Body will send an auditor to verify conformity to the standard, with success resulting in a certificate. Regular audits, normally annually, would then be needed to make sure the supplier continues to meet ISO 9001's requirements.
Another tier of ensuring robust certification is using a Certification Body that is accredited by their National Accreditation Body (NAB), who can verify the Certification Body's impartiality and competence to carry out the certification.
In the UK, the NAB is the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). You can check if a Certification Body is accredited by them by viewing their website. Also look out for the distinctive 'Crown & Tick' logo which accredited Certification Bodies are allowed to use.
The British Assessment Bureau's reputation was established in 1969 and we achieved pre-eminent status in 1997.
As well as providing certification to internationally recognised standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, we provide bespoke assessment services for people, services and organisations of all sizes.
For more information visit www.british-assessment.co.uk.
