Establishing a quality, safety, health and environmental management system (ISO9001, ISO14001, ISO45001)

What is ISO 9001?

ISO 9001 is a globally recognized standard for quality management. This standard helps organizations of all sizes and industries improve their performance, meet customer expectations, and demonstrate their commitment to quality. The requirements of this standard specify how to establish, implement, maintain, and continuously improve a Quality Management System (QMS).

Implementing ISO 9001 means that your organization has effective processes and trained employees in place to deliver flawless products or services. Based on seven quality management principles, ISO 9001 is the most widely used quality management standard in the world, with over one million certifications issued to organizations across 189 countries.

Benefits of ISO 9001 for Businesses:

  • Customer Assurance: This standard ensures that organizations have strong quality control processes in place, leading to increased trust and customer satisfaction.
  • Effective Complaint Resolution: ISO 9001 provides guidelines for effectively resolving customer complaints, helping to address issues promptly and satisfactorily.
  • Process Improvement: The standard helps identify and eliminate inefficiencies, reduce waste, streamline operations, and improve decision-making, resulting in cost savings and better outcomes.
  • Continuous Improvement: Regular audits and reviews by ISO 9001 enable organizations to continuously refine their quality management systems, stay competitive, and achieve long-term success.

What is ISO 14001?

ISO 14001 is an internationally recognized standard for Environmental Management Systems (EMS). This standard provides a framework for organizations to design and implement an EMS and continuously improve their environmental performance. By adhering to this standard, organizations can ensure they are taking preventive actions to minimize their environmental footprint, comply with relevant legal requirements, and achieve their environmental goals.

In the era of growing environmental awareness and increasing global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion, organizations play a crucial role in preserving the environment. ISO 14001 offers businesses a structured approach to address these pressing concerns. By adopting this standard, organizations not only demonstrate their commitment to compliance with regulations but also to continuous environmental improvement. This proactive approach to environmental management can lead to tangible benefits such as waste reduction, energy conservation, and cost savings.

Additionally, it enhances the organization’s reputation, builds stakeholder trust, and is often a critical step for engaging in global trade and supply chains. In simple terms, ISO 14001 is a testament to an organization’s commitment to a sustainable future, combining environmental responsibility with strategic business growth.

What is ISO 45001?

ISO 45001 is an international standard that specifies the requirements for an Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) management system. This standard provides a framework for organizations to manage risks and improve OH&S performance. It sets criteria for policies, objectives, planning, implementation, operations, audits, and reviews of OH&S.

Key elements of ISO 45001 include leadership commitment, employee involvement, hazard identification and risk assessment, legal compliance, emergency preparedness, incident investigation, and continuous improvement.

ISO 45001 uses the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) approach to systematically manage health and safety risks. This method can be applied to organizations of any size and can also be integrated with other ISO management system standards.

Adopting this standard demonstrates to employees and external stakeholders that the organization is committed to the health, safety, and well-being of its workforce. It leads to enhanced reputation, improved employee morale, and retention. ISO 45001, with its protocols for emergency preparedness and response, strengthens the organization’s resilience against safety threats and crises. The PDCA framework ensures that the OH&S system can continuously improve and evolve, enhancing long-term worker health and safety performance.

Establishing a Competency Management System (ISO10015:2019)

The presence of individuals (personnel) in all organizations is essential. The performance of organizations depends on how the competencies and qualifications of individuals are utilized in the workplace. The success of organizations requires the management of competencies and the development of individuals at the organizational, team, group, and individual levels. It is clear that the management of competencies and the development of individuals are interconnected: the development of individuals is a part of competency management, and qualified individuals need development. These two structures are internally connected and, in many ways, inseparable. The use of planned and systematic processes for managing competencies and developing individuals greatly helps organizations improve their capabilities, follow their strategic path, and achieve their desired outcomes. Competency management plays a critical role in increasing the organization’s ability to create and deliver value.

Scope of Application

This standard provides guidance to organizations to establish, implement, maintain, and enhance competency management and people development systems, thereby positively impacting the outcomes of products and services’ compliance with stakeholder needs and expectations. This standard is applicable to all organizations regardless of type and size.

Key Changes in the ISO 10015:2019 Standard Compared to Its Previous Version (1999):

  • Technically updated: As you know, ISO standards published by Committee 176 do not typically address technical issues, but this standard has addressed significant topics in the area of human resource management. For example, it refers to the Individual Development Plan (IDP).

  • Greater alignment with ISO 9000 family standards: The updated version offers better coordination with the ISO 9000 family standards, making it more consistent with the principles of quality management.

  • Focus on Competency Management: The new version places more emphasis on competency management, ensuring that organizations focus on ensuring their workforce meets required standards and is continually developing.

  • Development of human beings and nurturing employees: The updated version emphasizes aligning individual growth with the overall organizational objectives, ensuring that personal development is not just isolated but integrated with broader business goals.

  • Updated to reflect current business realities: The new version of the standard supports the reality that organizations, to be effective, need to identify their competency requirements on a scheduled basis to remain competitive and efficient.

Appraisers and Auditors Conference

Identify and improve processes

Process identification is a set of activities aimed at strategically defining the set of business processes of a company and creating clear criteria for prioritizing them. The output of process identification is a process architecture that shows the business processes and their interrelationships. The process architecture serves as a framework for defining priorities and the scope of modeling and redesign projects.

Understanding and managing interacting processes as a system helps the organization’s efficiency and effectiveness in achieving its desired outcomes. This approach enables the organization to control the relationships and interdependencies of system processes in a way that improves the overall performance of the organization.

The process approach involves the systematic definition and management of processes and their interactions, ultimately achieving the desired results in line with the quality policy and strategic direction of the organization. Process and system management, as a whole, can be carried out through the use of the PDCA cycle, focusing on risk-based thinking with the goal of taking advantage of opportunities and preventing undesirable results.

By using the process approach in the quality management system, the organization is able to:

  • Understand and maintain meeting requirements;
  • Consider processes based on value added;
  • Achieve effective process performance;
  • Improve processes based on data and information evaluation.

In ISO standards, the following requirements regarding processes are mentioned:

The organization must establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve a quality management system that includes the required processes and their interactions according to the requirements of the ISO 9001 international standard.

The organization must determine the processes required for the quality management system and their application across the organization, and must:

  • Determine the necessary inputs and expected outputs of these processes;
  • Determine the sequence and interaction of these processes;
  • Determine and implement the necessary criteria and methods (including monitoring, measurement, and relevant performance indicators) to ensure effective execution and control of these processes;
  • Determine the resources needed for these processes and ensure access to them;
  • Assign responsibilities and authorities for these processes;
  • Address risks and opportunities;
  • Evaluate these processes and apply any necessary changes to ensure that these processes achieve the desired results;
  • Improve processes and the quality management system.

At Saba Management Consulting, we help you identify and improve processes to cover both organizational requirements and international standard requirements in the business field.

Establishing a People Assessment Management System (Assessment and Development Center) - ISO 10667

This standard provides guidelines for conducting assessments at the individual, group, or organizational level. The topics addressed in this standard include:

  • How to select the evaluation method, carry out the evaluation, and follow up on the evaluation results;
  • Interpreting evaluation results and subsequent reports;
  • Collecting, processing, and storing personal data of evaluation participants and evaluation data;
  • Ensuring the competence and professionalism of evaluators and their role in the evaluation process;
  • Organizational decisions related to the provision of evaluation services.

The standard also examines the following decisions:

  • Employment-related decisions, such as hiring, selection, development, evaluation, promotion, succession planning, and succession;
  • Job-related decisions such as hiring, coaching, mentoring, professional rehabilitation, and outplacement consulting;
  • Group-related decisions such as educational initiatives and team-building;
  • Organizational decisions such as restructuring, culture-related initiatives, mergers, and acquisitions.

Implementing ISO 10667 enables organizations to operate more effectively in assessments, make better decisions in hiring, and improve performance in discovering talent and having employees who are suitable for the organization. Adopting this standard helps regulatory bodies, other sources of authority, and society at large to have greater trust in evaluation methods.

ISO 10667 consists of the following sections:

  • Part 1: Employer Requirements
  • Part 2: Requirements for Assessment Service Providers

Competencies Development – Fara Plan

Establishing a customer complaints management system (ISO10002)

This guide provides instructions for the process of handling complaints related to products and services in an organization, including planning, design, development, operation, maintenance, and improvement. This standard is applicable to any organization, regardless of its type or size, or the products and services it offers. It also provides specific guidance for small businesses.

This document addresses the following aspects of the complaint handling process:

  • Increasing customer satisfaction by creating a customer-focused environment that is open to feedback (including complaints), resolving any received complaints, and enhancing the organization’s ability to improve its products and services, including customer services;
  • Engagement and commitment of senior management through acquiring and establishing sufficient resources, including staff training;
  • Recognizing and addressing the needs and expectations of complainants;
  • Providing an open, effective, and user-friendly complaint process for complainants;
  • Analyzing and evaluating complaints to improve the quality of products and services, including customer services;
  • Auditing the complaint handling process;
  • Reviewing the effectiveness and efficiency of the complaint handling process.

Establishing a customer satisfaction management system (ISO10004)

This standard provides guidelines for defining and implementing processes for monitoring and measuring customer satisfaction. It is intended for use by any organization, regardless of its type or size, or the products and services it offers. The primary focus of this standard is on external customers of the organization.