24 July 2009 : ISO 9001:2008 New Quality Management System

Although we say the new standard, the ISO 9001:2008 has been with us for near to a year already ! Gathering our experience in this area, we have the following opinions : a) the transition to the new standard is a simple job. b) companies can easily do it themselves, or by use of a consultant. Anyway the consultancy fee will NOT be high. c) some certification bodies like their client to upgrade the system as soon as possible, but some prefer it to be done nearer the deadline. d) Despite only small changes are made, the key altered areas are summarized below for reference : 1) Outsource control (exercise control over outsourced processes) 2) Management Representatives (they shall be members of own management) 3) Competence of personnel (Staff competence requirements shall be defined) 4) Infrastructure & work environment (information system included as infrastructure & examples of work environment given) 5) Post delivery services (control your post delivery services, if any.) 6) Customer satisfaction (more options given to measure this.) 7) Correction after internal audit (need to correct detected nonconformity) 8) Effectiveness of Corrective and Preventive Actions ( need to evaluate effectiveness of actions)