[Moderator David@stives]

Is anyone here a 9001 registered firm

I am embarking on the iso route.

How have you found it since you implemented it ?

[trevor perry]

we where iso 9001 accredited for about five years and didnt find any benefit from it having said that you are better at marketing than me and i am sure you could make it worthwhile, they used to audit us every six months and basically he would come to the office check our paperwork, have a chat for about half an hour and then charge about £400 for the visit, another downside was we had the iso9001 symbol advertised on the side of the van but was told we had to remove it but it could be on our letterheads and business cards.

[JSMC]

dave i wouldn't do it mate. i told ye before what it oinvolves and it'ds a living breathing system that needs to be worked.

you will need a IMS intergrated management system and then IMSP intergrated management system procedures. If doing this take time to really think out what ye rdoing mate. seriously this is amassive undertaking and involves seriosu paper trails all over the place. I could go on and on about it.

Anything within the iso 9001 system that has the word "shall" means you have to do it. sure ther ear eover 100 of these at least.

system will also ned audited and a timetable will have to be drawn up to cover this. You cannot audit yourself either. You will have to either train one of your workers up to ISO accrediation or ge tsomeone in to do it.

[JSMC]

your worker can only carry out internal auditing and then external auditors will carry out the big audits.

[John Walker]

I worked for a major oil company and was very involved in the company gaining acreditation for BS5750 later to become ISO9001.  At the time it seemed that if you didn't have it you wouldn't be able to compete.

It didn't make a lot of difference businesswise apart from all the extra admin and was dropped after a number of years.

What does seem to be important is that you do at least have an internal quality structure and you work to it.  You don't have to pay for the expense of being accredited to do this.  You must allow prospective customer see your quality manuals and procedures and prove that you are adhereing to them.

A detailed log of customer complaints and how they were resolved is a very important item.

[JSMC]

also dont make it too fancy and load sof jargo. the easy way to do it is

do what you say in manual

also if you do go down this rpoute just to let you know your customers who are also iso acredited can come and audit you as well. this then let them put you on their approved list.

if actions are raised they must be followed and closed down always.

[John Walker]

also dont make it too fancy and load sof jargo. the easy way to do it is

do what you say in manual

also if you do go down this rpoute just to let you know your customers who are also iso acredited can come and audit you as well. this then let them put you on their approved list.

if actions are raised they must be followed and closed down always.

Looks like you have also been heavily involved in quality procedures JSMC 

[JSMC]

qualified internal iso auditor and basically ran the full audit timetable which involved a good fee audits every month. Loved auditing. basically take what they say and make a question out of it. also go through all SOP's standard operating procedures with guys om machines, office staff etc etc. Ask them to run through what they do and comare it. Writ eup the report with Non conformance or observations and then action to dept supervisor on timescales and go back and do all again.

you really need to be on yer toes and not deviate away form the standard or yer goosed. dont make it out to be too fancy or ye end up screwing yersle by trying to look good. Eventually i will write up some little manual for myself and follow it so if people ask on any commercial sites i can show them. little things like TDS checks, H&S issues, complaint procdures, yada yada yada

[andyatkinson]

if you go for it ISO in a box are a pretty good firm to use, just google it

[JSMC]

more hassle than it's worth TBH. just set up a small quality manual of yer own and forget baout iso for time being. wlak before you can run. ISO 9001 is a massive undertaking and if you dont keep it up to date it's useless to you and will be taken from you.

Also set yersel up for a fall with anybody deciding ok we will audit dave morris firm this week.