Our ISO 9001 Journey: Compliant – at Last!

During the final phase of our ISO 9001 project, we continued to focus on implementation of various requirements of the ISO 9001: 2008 standard. There were a number of verifications performed to ensure that our QMS met all specified requirements.

On-Going Implementation

Some implementation activities take longer to complete, so we had to carry those over into our final phase of the project. These activities generally had to be performed in a specific sequence. Following are some examples:

• On‐going employee training/awareness events
• Analysis of QMS‐related data (process performance, product conformance, customer satisfaction, suppliers, delivery, etc.)
• Performance of your management review
• Establishment of Quality Objectives

Verification Activities

As our implementation progressed during this phase, our QMS underwent a number of assessments, to ensure that our system was developing as planned and capable of meeting all specified requirements. The following verifications were some that occurred during this stage:

• Internal pre‐assessment
• Internal audit
• Registrar pre‐assessment

Each of the above verification activities helped in achieving compliance and was a valuable part of the implementation process.

The pre‐assessment is a pre‐certification activity that was to be performed by our ISO 9001registrar. The review primarily focused on the adequacy of the system documentation as well as other implementation activities. A satisfactory Stage I assessment indicated that we were ready for the final assessment for ISO certification.

Compliance

For the final phase of the project, we primarily focused on letting the system operate under normal conditions in order to continue to collect the objective evidence necessary to demonstrate conformance. During this time, any corrective actions identified had to be closed; additional training was considered, as well as additional data collection and analysis and the performance of a Management Review as required by the ISO 9001:2008 standard.

At the completion of this phase of the project was the compliance audit, performed by our ISO 9001 registrar. At the conclusion of this assessment,  received a report from the auditor recommending that our system receive ISO 9001 compliance status.

Although we must constantly monitor our QMS and adjust as needed over time, we’re very proud of our entire organization for helping us complete the most important part of the journey!