Maintaining the benefits and continual improvement

Most new users of the ISO 9000 family of standards obtain measurable benefits early in the process of implementing the requirements in their operations. These initial benefits are generally due to improvements in their organization and internal communication. The benefits must be strengthened through effective internal auditing and management review of system performance. Like all systems, it either improves or becomes less effective. It does not remain static for long.

ISO 10014 provides guidelines for realizing financial and economic benefits from the application of the ISO 9000 quality management principles. It is directed to top management of the organization and complements ISO 9004 for performance improvements.

When you adopt ISO 9001, you must strive to satisfy your customers and to achieve continual improvement of your operations through the QMS. Continual improvement is a process of increasing the effectiveness of your organization to fulfill to quality policy and your quality objectives that you have established which are updated periodically. ISO 9001 requires that you plan and manage the processes necessary to continually improve your QMS. ISO 9004 provides information you can use to go beyond ISO 9001 to strengthen the competitive position and to provide improvements to operational efficiency. It is recommended that you obtain data from various sources, both internal and external, to assess how appropriate your quality system objectives are to changing circumstances. This information can also be used to improve the performance of all your business processes.

Many organizations expand their management systems by extending the ISO 9001 structure to include the requirements of other management systems standards, including  ISO 14001, Environmental management systems. The structural and organizational requirements of ISO management systems standards are designed to be compatible.

• The future of the ISO 9000 family