ISO 9001:2000 is an international quality management standard. It was developed by a worldwide federation of national standards bodies under the name ‘International Organisation for Standardization’. The history of the current standard dates back to the 1970s when it was decided to there would be a national standard on what constituted a quality system. This resulted in the BS5750 series of standards, which, in turn were very firmly based on Ministry of Defence (MoD) standards.
BS5750 was a fine standard but was heavily biased towards manufacturing processes. With the increasing move of the UK economy towards service industries, companies wanting to work to quality standards had problems in adopting its requirements. This led to ISO 9000:1987 series and ISO 9000:1994 series.
The current standard is ISO 9001:2000 and it brings the whole idea of Quality Management up to date. The standard encourages normal management practices such as “Plan-Do-Check-Act” (PDCA) but most importantly emphasises Customer Focus and Continual Improvement as specific requirements. The core of the standard is adherence to 8 Quality Management Principles :
1) Customer Focus
2) Leadership
3) Involvement of People
4) Process Approach
5) System Approach to management
6) Continual Improvement
7) Factual Approach to Decision Making
8) Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships
Oak has been registered to ISO standards since 2000. Our starting point is our definition of quality i.e. “Quality = In conformance with Customer requirements”. We find that the structured approach assists us in all areas of the business. For example, new staff can be trained easily using our operational procedure flow charts. We carry out around 30 internal audits each year and these quickly identify anything that is not running to plan. Customer surveys are conducted regularly and action is taken if it is found that we are not meeting expectations.
Oak Customers will benefit from our registration by way of well-designed and tested product coupled with effective administration and support. If things do go wrong then our escalation processes will ensure that things are put right in the shortest possible time. It should also be noted the Oak undergoes independent inspection from the National Quality Assurance organisation at least once a year. Our last inspection was 1st August 2007 where the assessor reported 100% compliance with the standard and summarised :
"A highly developed system under review for improvement opportunities. Comprehensive Records are used for effective Analysis. High Customer Satisfaction with reliable products and service. Continues to meet the requirements of ISO 9001:2000."