Introduction

Of all the standards on management systems the ISO 9001:2008 standard on quality management is by far the most used. At this point in time over one million companies worldwide are registered to ISO 9001. Certification is big business and sometimes the goal and the means are switched. As said in the general introduction on management systems: there is nothing wrong with pursuing registration, but try to get the maximum out of your quality system.

This standard will always be important but because it is generic by nature it is getting more and more competition from sector specific standards. More on this in ''ISO TS 16949" and "Other systems".

QS Consult view and approach

When consulting an organization on implementing a quality management system we use the following guidelines:

• The needs of the company are always the starting point, the standard comes second. Off course the system has to fulfil the requirements of the standard, but these offer much more freedom than generally thought.
• The system is the system of the organization, not of the quality department. Everyone has to be involved.
• Only simple systems are used and survive.
• We favour the integration of the quality management system with other systems. This is not limited to other management systems (see "Integrated Systems") but also includes information systems. Procedures are very often defined by the routines of the information system.
• Visualize as much as possible.