Once your organization has a Quality Management System in place, your will look to undergo a certification audit in 
order to attain the ISO 9001 certification. This phase can a little nerve-wracking, often leaving you wondering whether the auditors will approve your system or not – will you get another opportunity or not? What assessment will you get? And more. However, there is nothing to worry about as far as the certification process in concerned. The certification process is simply a prerequisite once you have qualified for certain preset guidelines.
Preparing for the ISO 9001 Certification Audit
Your company’s Quality Management System (QMS) is the foundation in maintaining essential processes, correcting problems and continually improving processes. It also makes it necessary for you to work towards its continual improvement over time. After you have implemented all the ISO 9001 processes and procedures, your certification body will expect you to maintain the system for a certain duration of time, which is usually six to nine months.
During this time, you have to accumulate all important records to exhibit how your processes are doing after the QMS implementation. A few more actions will also have to be worked upon to show how your processes are adhering under the planned arrangements. These actions include:
- Internal Audits: Your certification body will always expect that you run an assessment of every ongoing process within your QMS before they do. This will let you know if the results are coming in as expected, or if any deviations need to be treated and fixed before the actual audit.
- Review by the Management: The top management also needs to perform certain tasks while adhering to the defined QMS guidelines. Their QMS review will assess if there is any need to re-assign certain resources, and whether the system is in compliance. This again will need to be done before the certification body conducts its audit.
- Follow-up Corrective Actions: If something does come up during an internal audit or management review, you must prepare yourself with appropriate plans to investigate the root cause and determine the corrective actions to address it. You must make sure to never leave any problem you can identify, to be detected by the auditor.
What if a problem is identified?
It is very common for auditors to find some problem during the initial phases of auditing. It is up to you to work upon it and correct its root cause(s). Once all the ‘failures’ have been addressed and rectified, you will be presented with the ISO 9001 certification.
For more on internal audits, join Robert Jasper in an online webinar on Tuesday, January 24, 2017 where he will provide more information on High Performance QMS and how you can get through your next ISO 9001 certification audit successfully. During the event, Robert will help you discover more about the new ISO 9001:2015 standards, and how you can avoid most common pitfalls while implementing it.
