QCS International

With the new ISO 9004 standard focussing on sustainability, more and more organisations are now recognising the need for a formal standard for all areas of social responsibility including the environment, human rights and fair operating practices.

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) is currently writing a standard to formalise the requirements for ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’.

The new standard, ISO 26000, and will be published in 2010.   The standard is attracting attention from many governments across the world so this could be a requirement not only for large organisations but long term, for any business  supplying central and local government.

Believe it or not only 10 months after the lauch of ISO 9001:2008, the technical comittee responsible for ISO 9001 is already working on the next revision of the standard due for publication in 2013 (well thats the theory anyway).   As the 2008 version was termed a ‘minor’ change to ISO 9001, you can expect some more extensive revisions in the next version so its worth keeping up to speed with any proposed changes .

What to expect?

This is very much open to debate at the minute but one hot topic is the use of risk management.   Risk management is at the heart of ISO 14001 for environmental management and OHSAS 18001 for health & safety management; its even included in the Integrated Management Systems specification PAS 99.  

Some experts argue that risk management is already in ISO 9001; for example sections 7.1 via quality planning, and 8.5 via preventive action, the use of risk assessment is not mandatory for ISO 9001 certification.

Other areas for discussion are an enhanced focus on product conformance and also inclusion of financial resources and knowledge management into the standard which are mentioned in the current revision of ISO 9004.

So you have an environmental policy and maybe you even hold ISO 14001 certification, but the new 10:10 scheme supported by the government, the Energy Saving Trust and the Carbon Trust is a way you can publically demonstrate your commitment (more…)

ISO 9001:2008 was issued less than a year ago and already there is an update.   Classed as ‘Technical Corrigendum 1’ the update does not affect your existing ISO 9001:2008 certification but it is useful to have.

What does the update cover?

The update actually only covers Annex A (Correspondence between ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004) and Annex B (ISO 9001:2000 to ISO 9001:2008 changes table) so although you should be aware and have a copy of the Corrigendum, there is no need to re-train anyone in the content or application of the standard; not even your internal audit team.

Where can I get a copy?

You can download a copy of the latest ISO 9001 update free at Techstreet.

Your customers rely on certification to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 as confidence in your performance, just as you rely on your suppliers to hold credible management systems.   But is your certificate valid? (more…)