A quality management system designed according to the ISO 9001 standard must fulfill the requirements contained in the standard and designed to help organizations achieve customer satisfaction through quality products and services. The standard directs and coordinates the activities of organizations that want to implement it to satisfy customers, mandatory requirements and all other requirements, improve effectiveness and promote continuous improvement.
The requirements of the quality system, therefore, help your organization achieve the goals it has set and those of its customers, determining its success in implementing quality. To do all this, however, a very specific structure is needed. Let's see it.
Let's start with the quality manual which, although no longer mandatory with the new revision of the standard, remains a guide that illustrates the reason behind the adoption of the management system. According to ISO 9000, a quality manual should contain the scope of the system, the requirements, the scheme for formulating objectives and quality policies. It should also have references to the procedures used daily for work and a diagram of the processes.
The quality objectives are another piece of the structure that makes up a quality system, and it is logical that this is the case because it is necessary to create objectives and a sense of direction for the implementation of the management system, otherwise people would not know in which direction the company is proceeding. The objectives should be based on measurements, to be able to verify how they are progressing, and have a deadline to estimate whether they will be achieved within the timeframes established by the company. Continuing, a quality system must be based on a well-defined organizational structure, also at the level of people who must be able to count on a clear definition of their responsibilities.
Organizations should then have adequate data management systems to avoid scenarios of operational inefficiencies, poor customer experience and other risks related to compliance. Data management procedures should relate to documentation and records, collection methods, sources, disposal and storage. This is also part of the structure on which a management system must be based.
With regard to internal processes, the quality system designed according to ISO 9001 requires organizations to define all the processes involved in transforming inputs into finished products and services. There should be an effort to illustrate how the different internal processes interact with the various resources made available. The quality system requires companies to assess and manage customer satisfaction and the best way to start is to define the different methods and tools that you want to use to measure customer satisfaction levels. For example, it is possible to assess customer satisfaction by examining surveys, complaint procedures or analytical tools and thus assess the different trends.
Organizations must then clearly document their intentions to meet the continuous improvement standards of the quality system. The documentation must contain safety plans, corrective actions, quality planning procedures and compliance requirements. Finally, companies should have tools to measure the progress and success of the quality system and ensure that they are well calibrated and controlled to meet the relevant specifications.