Certifications: Implementing ISO 9001 in the Best Way

Companies today operate in dynamic and complex environments. Therefore, they need to have the ability to adapt increasingly, to be flexible and quick in providing correct and consistent answers, to provide good customer service, to respect contractual commitments, to be able to count on people with a good professional level, and to have sound practices as the foundation of their work.

For all these reasons, there are enormous advantages in applying standards and, in particular, ISO 9001, because they provide models for implementing good practices, guide daily work, and help organizations interpret their work activities. Essentially, standards offer a clear picture of what needs to be done, how to do it, and how to proceed with verifying the work done and with improvement.

ISO standards guarantee certifiable management systems defined by a four-phase process, invented by Walter Andrew Shewhart and popularized by William Edwards Deming, based on planning (Plan), implementation (Do), control (Check), and improvement (Act). In particular, ISO 9001 deals with quality management systems. Quality is the degree to which a set of intrinsic characteristics, that is, differentiating characteristics, fulfills requirements (stated or implicit needs or expectations).

To implement ISO 9001 in your company in the best way, it is advisable to divide the process into four phases:

1. Preparation: you must design the quality system that will then be created;
2. Implementation: in this second phase, the management system must be disseminated among the people who will use it and implemented to verify that everything works as expected;
3. Critical Analysis: once the quality system has been created and implemented, it will be necessary to ensure that it works optimally and, in this third phase, you will rely on audits to see if something needs improvement and, precisely, on the improvement process;
4. Certification: when you are sure that everything works as required by the ISO 9001 standard and your needs, you will move on to the last phase, that of the actual certification, which, at this point, will be a pure formality if the previous three phases have been completed successfully. The certification process, in turn, is divided into five steps:
   1. the company contacts the certification body and communicates all the information necessary for the preparation of a commercial offer;
   2. the certification body examines the information and draws up its offer and audit plan. All information deemed necessary (time estimated for the evaluation, information on the assessors, etc.) is sent to the client;
   3. in this phase, the documentary system of the organization is evaluated;
   4. in the fourth phase, the body's auditors move to the company's headquarters to conduct an audit of the quality system during which they will examine documents, processes and the activities actually carried out by the staff; e. in this last phase, if the result of the audit is positive, the body issues the certificate and sends it to the client

For phase 4 of your certification journey, choose ACSQ and you won't regret it. For any information, call us at 02.58320936 or write to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and our experts will be happy to give you all the information you need to start working with your organization.