Making ISO registration easy
ISO is an abbreviation of the International Standards Organisation. As their name suggests it is an international organisation, based in Geneva, who are responsible for coordinating the setting of standards globally.
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Starting your business
Your business may be in it’s early stages, but implementing a management system that can grow with you is a good place to start. You may not be quite ready for an ISO system yet but we can advise you how to get prepared for your business to grow.
Growing your business
An ISO system will help you to grow your business and win bigger contracts. Let us work with you to get the systems and certifications in place to enable you to reach your potential.
Sustaining your business
You already have your ISO system in place but maintaining it to ensure you retain your certification is time consuming. We can provide that all important system maintenance, internal audits and external audit support.
I need help with ISO management system
Support & Development
Non-conformances can sometimes be tricky to address, especially when written in often alien “ISO speak”. All of which adds to the unnecessary stress of your coveted ISO certificate perhaps being put in jeopardy.
The worst case we’ve ever resolved was for an architect, who will for obviously reasons remain nameless, they had gone into their ISO 14001 environmental assessment completely unprepared and the assessor, very reasonably in our view, ’cause they hadn’t done a lot, presented them with 27 major non-conformances prior to abandoning the certification visit. We picked up their project after the assassination assessment helping them gain certification with no nonconformances at the next attempt. So, if we can help them we can probably help you.
However, it might be that you only have one non-conformance, but it’s a horribly knotty one, perhaps involving something around a particular area that you’re perfectly capable of understanding, given somebody explains it to you in plain English, but with which you’re simply unfamiliar.
Regardless of the quantity, and indeed subject area, of the non-conformance we are very comfortable dealing with a range of certification bodies and standards to help you both understand and resolve non-conformance issues.
If you have just picked up a non-conformance from your certification body and want some help dealing with it, we can help.
Did you get through your last annual ISO surveillance, breathe a sigh of relief, and then just crack on with your day job?
Has the year zipped round quickly and now, just like last year, there is another mad panic before the ISO man (or lady) cometh?
Obviously, you will have done all the things that you need to do on a day-to-day basis:
- You will have set yourself objectives and targets – done stuff to move the organisation forward
- You will have won new work and new customers
- You will have improved various aspects of your business
All of the above is good, even great, stuff that we all do day-to-day and naturally. What you may not have done is the less frequent more mundane stuff the ISO requires you to do:
- You may not have logged and learnt from things that have gone wrong (non-conformances)
- You may not have undertaken any audits
- You may not have undertaken the required management review
- You may not have approved new suppliers
Potentially there are two remedies:
- If time allows, get us in to undertake a quick audit and a management review to address the issues, and then appoint us to manage the system going forward
- If time doesn’t allow, take the hit. Sadly, you’ll probably require a “special visit”, but you will typically be given 60 to 90 days to resolve the issue at this point we’re dealing with a non-conformance
Have you been in the habit of letting your ISO systems drift along? Do you muddle through your ISO assessment on an annual basis? And have all things been “Tickety Boo” until now they’re not? Has a big customer come along dangling a big contract and it’s now time to get serious about your ISO systems?
We’ve tended to find with companies in this situation that the ISO system may not exactly represent what currently goes on. In these instances, we’d usually undertake an initial diagnostic / needs analysis in order to understand the business first and establish the current state of the ISO system.
Applying this understanding, we can then develop the systems to more directly align your ISO systems and processes to the needs, aims and ambitions of the business. A phrase we use a lot would be “we don’t want the ISO tail wagging the business dog”. The trick is to understand the business, the aims and objectives of the owners and managers, and then align the ISO system so that it properly and usefully supports the business.
Are you in a position where your consultant has regularly got you through the annual external audit process, but your business is moving on and perhaps they aren’t?
A lot of ISO consultants are getting on a bit (including me, but I do have a younger team), which means they either may want to retire or are not up to speed with the latest business processes and practises. The bottom line is they might want to get out of the business, or they might not be doing what you need them to do.
In situations like this, it is often found that the systems have been written “for the consultant by the consultant”, and they don’t necessarily reflect how the business actually operates.
All ISO system should use your terminology and your language and reflect the way your work works.
Have you had a cracking member of staff dutifully and diligently look after your ISO systems for years? And they’ve now left the business, or maybe business has boomed and now they are overwhelmed with the day-to-day? So, you’re now in an ISO hole!
ISO is one of those important, but not necessarily urgent, things that needs to be done, and done well, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be done by the top team. It can be delegated to somebody dedicated, dutiful and diligent.
But if that person leaves, or is overwhelmed by the day-to-day pressures of work, things can very quickly go to rack and ruin. If this is you and you are exposed by lack of ISO skills and resources, we’re here to help.
Was your ISO system originally developed and implemented some considerable time ago? Has your business powered ahead, developed, moved on, and in changing beyond all recognition, left your ISO management systems behind? Does your documented management system now look nothing like your business?
- You have objectives and targets and have delivered on them!
- You have slick processes and practises
- You have trained and developed people
- You have done loads of “good stuff”
But your ISO system is now clunky, outdated, and no longer reflects how you deliver value to your customers and clients. Your ISO system and your business are now poles apart.
You now need to refresh the system, so it actually helps you do what you do, more effectively.
Are you doing things simply to satisfy the assessor and the annual ISO assessment?
Some ISO activities are an absolute must, audits and management meetings spring to mind. But these can actually be made useful. There are however a raft of ways to overcomplicate ISO systems; filling in forms for the sake of filling in forms, unwieldy non-conformance processes, ineffectual box ticking audits, unnecessarily complex supplier management process, tortuous legal, aspects and impacts processes, cumbersome and convoluted document control requirements. The list is very long.
ISO consultants usually want to squeeze the business into the ISO framework. We want to understand the business and then develop the ISO system around your business. You need to make sure the ISO tail isn’t wagging the business dog.
Does your assessment agency aggravate you?
It’s funny, isn’t it? You would think that organisations dedicated to ensuring that their clients provide a quality service would do the same. Sadly, many certification bodies have woeful internal processes and are especially good at creating dissatisfied clients.
There are a variety of ways in which you may be getting hassle from the assessment agency:
- Hassle completing the non-conformance reports
- Hassle with them setting audit dates
- Hassle with them telling you how to manage your system
- General administrative hassle
Regardless of the precise nature of the hassle, we have experience of working with most certification bodies and can usually help you resolve the issues at hand.
I need help with ISO management system
Implementation
You know you provide a good service to your existing clients, and you could do for more clients if only you could get through the PQQ and tender processes that make ISO registration a specific requirement.
Getting to bid for contracts is probably the number one reason for companies to want ISO – to gain access to work that they can’t get without it.
It means without registration you are going to be penalised; at best this means less points on your tender submission, at worst it can mean outright rejection.
ISO becomes a licence to operate.
The best result we’ve achieved for a client was access to a five year £27m framework contract.
…pity we weren’t paid a percentage!
Have you just lost or are you about to lose a contract because you don’t have ISO?
The biggest contract we know of a client loosing because they didn’t have ISO was £2.5m.
And it’s not uncommon to find clients that need ISO because they’ve lost contracts in the order of £300k to £500k.
If you regularly bid for (and lose) contracts in the order of £50k to £100k, you are likely to get a return on your ISO investment by simply winning just one or two contracts. These are contracts that without our ISO there is no way you would secure.
Call us if you want to develop an ISO system that:
- Uses your language, terms and terminology
- Reflects your business processes
- Connects your processes to key performance indicators
- Is used to drive improvement
Are you struggling to make your business work efficiently and effectively?
One client believed that on each job they undertook they wasted about £150k to £250k because their processes were so poor. The way they managed their business was ineffective and inefficient – despite this they still made a profit. Just think how profitable they could have been if their processes were efficient and effective!
The question that needs to be asked, throughout the whole life of any business, is “how do I “systematically” give my customers the best results? The business processes then need to become “system” dependent not (expensive) “people” dependent.
Different studies by various manufacturing and construction Lean Institutes suggest the following percentages to three categories of work:
- Value creating work (just 5-10%)
- Work necessary to support the creation of value (30-35%)
- Waste (55-65%)
We have never met anyone who’s agreed with the above percentages, but equally, we have never met anyone that doesn’t agree that operational and support processes could, and generally should, be better, slicker and quicker than they generally are. The size of the prize here is huge, these are not hard sums, for every £1m of turnover:
- 5% would equate to £50k pa
- 10% would equate to £100k
The prize is large indeed!
Are you, like most directors, owners and managers, rightly, focused on bigger and more pressing business issues?
ISO systems and processes are important, critical even, but in reality, rarely urgent.
Let’s face it, there are very few of us (in fact I might be the only one) who went to our career’s advisor at school and said “I know what I wanna be, I wanna be an ISO specialist, how do I become one?” (I didn’t really…I’m not quite that sad!)
ISO might not be the sexiest subject in the world, but we firmly believe it is a useful one and can deliver real value given the thinking behind the standards are applied properly. But that doesn’t mean to say that you’ve got to do it, your time and skills are probably better employed elsewhere doing what you do more efficiently and effectively. And if we can free up your time, or your people’s time, to allow you to do your job better, slicker and quicker, that’s got to be a good thing, as we’ll all be playing to our strengths.
Are you looking to develop a culture of continual improvement?
If so, we definitely want to chat to you.
The thinking the tools and the techniques required to deliver the Holy Grail of quantifiable and knowable continual improvement have been within our grasp for 100 years. The pioneers of real and demonstrable continual improvement were the Dr’s, Shewhart and Deming. Together, they pioneered the Plan, Do, Study, Act methodology and Statistical Process Control (what we prefer to call Performance Prediction Charting).
These are the fundamental tools of quantifiable and knowable improvement.
If you are really interested in how to generate real, robust and quantifiable continual improvement, ping us an e-mail and we’ll send you a book.
Have you got that sneaking suspicion that the way you do things to deliver value to your clients could be better, slicker and quicker, pushing more profit to your bottom line? …but you’re not quite sure how or where to start?
If this is you, we definitely want to talk!
It might be that your processes are already good, but that doesn’t mean to say they couldn’t be better. Alternatively, you may already know that your processes are not nearly as good as they could be.
Regardless of the current situation, “the trick” is to understand the value that your customers want you to deliver to them and then to design your processes, and associated key performance indicators, so your processes are focused on their desires.
- Understand the customer first
- Design processes to deliver value to them
- Connect your key delivery processes to your key performance indicators
- Monitor and manage
- Make your delivery processes better, slicker and quicker
Or perhaps put it more pithily; Plan, Do, Study, Act!
Have you been thinking of ISO for a while but never got round to it?
If that’s you, then there are a couple of ways to think about how you might get “payback” from your ISO investment:
- By winning new work where clients procurement procedures prevent you from tendering unless you have ISO
- By smartening up your internal practises and processes to do stuff better, slicker and quicker
The size and complexity of your organisation would normally drive approach that is likely to deliver best value first.
Most companies see the opportunity in winning new work, but the standard was actually invented as a framework to help companies get better, slicker and quicker.
Working with clients from a wide variety of industries
No matter what industry or business sector you’re in, we will help you build a management system that fits your business. Visit our services page for more information about ISO systems and how we can help you to implement them.
We deliver the best solutions for every client's needs
Our aim is to simplify the process of obtaining your ISO registration. Visit our resources area where you can download a selection of useful templates, guidance notes and checklists.
