What is iso, and how can it help your quality

If you have never heard of ISO then you might be wondering what it is. Basically ISO is an actual organization in the business environment that helps to keep all businesses on the same page. ISO stands for International Organization for Standardization. This organization was created in 1947 and their primary goal was to develop international standards for all types of businesses from electronics to management systems. Currently the ISO has over 13,000 standards in place and new ones are created every year. But the best thing about ISO is that it can help your company's quality because it has created a auditing and certification process that is known as ISO 9001 which deals with quality standards.

One of the best things about ISO is that it is not designed just for manufacturing companies. ISO is actually designed for any type of business and what happens when you implement it is that the standards are personalized for your company. What this means is that regardless of if you do automobile manufacturing or work in aerospace the ISO standards can be personalized for your business so that your company can benefit from what the ISO has to offer and improve your quality.

One of the best ways that ISO can help your company is that it can improve your customer satisfaction. The reason why this improves your customer satisfaction is that many customers require you to get certified so it keeps your customers happy which in turn increases sales and profitability for your company. But not will your sales increase because of your customers being happy but if your customers are happy your reputation is going to improve and there is no better advertisement than word of mouth. If your current customers are satisfied or beyond satisfied with your current quality of products than they are going to be more likely to refer you to other people they work with or they will use your company for more of their current needs.

Another way that ISO helps your company's quality is that it uses the philosophy of the "Plan Do Check Act" improvement cycle to help your company achieve the requirements. This approach centers on the eight quality management principles that are used by management as a guide to improve performance and help identify the things that are needed in a good quality system. And what this approach does is to help your company develop the best business practices that they can and to continually make improvements on areas that need to be improved. The eight principles that management and the process uses are:
- Customer focus
- Leadership
- Improvement of people
- Process approach
- Systems approach to management
- Continuous improvement
- Factual approach to decision making
- Mutually beneficial supplier relationship

ISO also helps your company's quality because it can actually enhance your company's performance. The reason for this is that companies and customers both use ISO certification as a way to evaluate and audit their suppliers and products. This is done through an independent verification process which allows customers to be assured of their suppliers' products. But the best thing is that if your company is a supplier and you become certified the testing requirement is actually waved, and this will save your company both time and money.

But just because ISO can help improve your company's quality you should also use ISO because it is a great way to keep your customers happy and it is a great way for every business, no matter what country they are located in, to remain competitive with other companies in the same industry.