There is a major problem in organisations, and we need to fix it. It is a problem so major that it is going to take years to fix it, and in some organisations it will be fatal, and they just will not make it I am afraid. The challenge is that the issue is not immediately obvious, first it pops up in one area of the business and then before you know...

One of the questions I get asked a lot (and it really is a lot!) is "How does ISO define traceability?" that's always accompanied with: what do they want, what things do I need put in place, will it be expensive and but my customer doesn't care about it! The answer, initially at least is, "It depends!" Obviously, this is not overly helpful, so we n...

Even for the experienced ISO Systems manager, audits can be a nervous time. The second guessing of what you have created in your systems and what your ISO certification auditor is going to be looking for can lead to over thinking things and even on extremes the odd restless night. It does not matter if you are certifying to ISO9001 for quality mana...

The world of compliance is changing, it has had to change. The days of printing a forest worth of trees for your management systems and then keeping them, all safely tucked into a in a folder on the top shelf, is not something you can do today. COVID-19 has surely put paid to that myth once and for all? The idea of looking them it the week before a...

It does not matter if you are working to achieve or already have your International Standards Organisation (ISO) certification internal auditing is a key element you need to master. Internal auditing seems to be one of the areas of real trepidation and confusion around the requirements for internal auditing programs. When we talk with clients who a...

One of the things that happen when organisation start to build towards implementing their ISO management systems is that they look at the standard and try to figure out where to start. As people tend to do, they move towards the familiar, the bits they believe they know what to do and start there. They implement non-conformance processes, or risk p...

Compliance systems can be a pain, all that extra work, the paperwork, the audits, the forms, and reviews. The time that you waste chasing people up to do things they don't feel they should do and of course, getting ready for the big audit from the customer or the certification body when you could be doing your real work right? Chances are if you or...

An ISO standard for making Tea? Surely the world has just gone mad, bureaucracy is taking over, and it's just getting a little silly now, who needs a standard for making tea? Anyone can make tea; you bang on the kettle stick a tea bag in a cup and then pour in the hot water and then the milk… Well, hold on a minute, my gran would be incredulous wit...

When you go see a movie or start bing watching your new favorite show you don't jump in a third of the way through because you know that the early stuff is just pointless, it doesn't add anything or skip the first 3 or 4 chapters of your book because, well the interesting stuff is always in the middle. That 1st part of any story is always the criti...

February 2024 saw the release of the first amendment for ISO9001:2015 for Quality Management Systems. ISO releases amendments to standards when they want to add things to the standard that have already been agreed on, but they don't want to completely review the entire standard.  It's called the Climate Change Actions Amendment. What's been am...

This Week's Question  A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a few people around how things were going with their business in light of the ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic and day to day business in general. One of the topics that came up was around contingency planning within the company and the various approaches they each had. In one ...

 A short while ago I got the chance to catch up with Craig Thornton from Mango QHSE, of course both being lock-down along with the rest of New Zealand and most of the world it was via a web call.  The subject was one close to my heart, improvements. Specifically how do you uncover that are already hiding within your QHSE system, that are ...

Let's face it if you are working through ISO9001:2015 you already know that you need to monitor, measure, analyse and evaluate your quality management system, we talked about it way back in Clause 4.4 and again in Clause 6.2. You already understand why it's important so why is it here again in ISO9001:2015 Clause 9.1.1? I guess you could look at th...

When you ask people, what is the most important principal of a quality management system you will undoubtedly get a multitude of answers, some formed by facts, some not so much and some are just sitting on the fence claiming all are important. Anyone who knows me will agree here, I'm not much for sitting on the fence! Maybe it's part of being Scott...

We are excited to launch our new Virtual Quality Management Service which is designed to provide companies who do not have a dedicated Quality Management resource the support normally associated with a full time person but without the cost linked to employing that full time person. We do this by offering companies a set number of 'da...