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ISO
is an international certification that a
company conforms to certain standards. There
are various certifications bodies that approve
a company to the ISO 9002 (now
ISO 9001: 2008)
level of quality and service.
ISO
9002 was the International Organization for
Standardization's level that we were original
approved to in 1998. Since then there have
been changes so we'll concentrate on the
current position.
ISO
9000 is a family of standards, guidelines
and technical reports. This is the premier
international quality assurance award. This
family includes:
ISO
9000:2000 - a starting point for
understanding the standards. It defines the
fundamental terms and definitions used in the
ISO 9000 family
ISO 9001:2008 - This is the requirement
standard you use to assess your ability to
meet customer and applicable regulatory
requirements. Certain third party companies
are authorised to assess you to this standard
and provide you with the certification. This
replaces the older ISO 9002 and ISO
9001:2000 standards.
ISO
14001 falls under the ISO 14000 family and
is an international standard to evaluate an
organisation's environmental management
systems.
Some of the
things a company such as ours needs to do to
achieve ISO 9002 (ISO 9001:2000) certification are:
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Have
an established policy on quality, and a
quality procedure manual.
-
Have
an officer designated for ensuring and
maintaining quality standards
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Have
regular reviews of quality. Audits to be
done both in house and by an external
independent body
-
Have
policies on various other issues including
and not limited to staff training and
development etc
-
Maintain
a list of approved suppliers
-
Have
all written procedures stated simply,
unambiguously and understandably
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When
you are certified to ISO 9002 you have to "Say what you do. Do what you say.
Prove that you do it"
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Have
a system in place for monitoring customer
satisfaction.
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