Questions about ISO 9001 (from an ISO consultant)

[GreenFish]

I am looking to grow my one-man) ISO 9001 consulting business and would really appreciate some honest views from business owners out there about ISO 9001.

From what I see from my own clients and what I have read on this forum, a key driver for a business getting ISO certification is that it's required by a large customer, government bodies, LA, etc. It's not that the business itself actually thinks, "Let's get ISO 9001 certified!".

Apart from the ability to quote for projects or contracts, I don't see or hear many businesses talking about other benefits. To be honest, it's mainly negatives such as cost, unnecessary admin work, extra paperwork, pointless activities just to comply with ISO 9001, and the time to prep for audits. I work with some businesses that have a 9001-accredited quality management system, but it's never "used" in practice. I also see businesses that have been sold templated systems that are just a burden and pretty worthless (i.e., a training procedure for a father-son engineering company).

It would be great to get your thoughts on ISO 9001, such as:

• Reasons for wanting to get ISO 9001
• Positive impacts on your business: has it benefited your business (i.e., increased sales or reduced waste)?
• What is the downside of getting or having ISO 9001?

Many thanks for your help!

 

[fisicx]

I worked at two organisations that got 9001 accreditation and neither found it worth the effort. Agreed it aligned some of their processes but it was really a management exercise. Nobody in production cared or changed how they did things. Documents soon became out of date as the continuous improvement cycle never took place.

 

[pentel]

Like a lot of things the idea is great however the base cost in both monetary terms and time terms make it more suitable for larger organisations, and for a 200+ employee company could actually be useful to try to ensure consistency of process and product. For a 10 person company the work needed would be the same however it would cost 10 - 20x as much per employee to implement.

For smaller companies it is only the pre-requisite to be able to tender which makes it of value. Inevitably you are tendering to larger organisation for whom it makes sense and they can see the value but don't understand the burden it places on smaller companies.

 

[fisicx]

Larger organisations with 9001 accreditation will tender and if they win often subcontract out to smaller companies who don’t have accreditation. Sort of makes the whole thing pointless.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I worked for two large survey companies many years ago about 5 years after 9001 was introduced. The fist on had about 5 A4 pages on how a surveyor should set up a theodolite, the second stated only trained surveyors could use the theodolite. guess the fist one got ripped of by a over keen 9001 writer making a job for themselves. You can make 9001 what you want as others have said great idea but large weaknesses

 

[pentel]

You can make 9001 what you want as others have said great idea but large weaknesses

This!

State that you are going to make crap, document how you are going to make crap, follow process to make crap and you have made ISO9001 crap!

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

I worked at two organisations that got 9001 accreditation and neither found it worth the effort. Agreed it aligned some of their processes but it was really a management exercise. Nobody in production cared or changed how they did things. Documents soon became out of date as the continuous improvement cycle never took place

This - for me, I worked for one business who went through it!

 

[IanSuth]

We had a new general manager come into our recruitment firm in about 2005 - she had come from a medical recruitment background for a huge agency. She spent 3 months creating a written process to ISO standards - one day she was out and the MD was covering, she took a new job and proceeded to try and get on with things are she had done - everything she went to do we said "sorry you can't do that you have to document x,y & z first plus follow this that and the other process" after about 90 mins and having yet to even start identifying people to ring about the position she suddenly announced she could see why sales had dipped as our competitors were doing the job not just writing about it- that general manager was gone within another month.

Some organisations or industries need clearly defined processes - the bigger and more complex an organisation is the more so it needs that standardisation and ISO (and bs5750 before it) seem great for that - but for an SME they are the antithesis of that being small and agile

 

[DontAsk]

I worked at two organisations that got 9001 accreditation and neither found it worth the effort. Agreed it aligned some of their processes but it was really a management exercise. Nobody in production cared or changed how they did things. Documents soon became out of date as the continuous improvement cycle never took place.

Similar experience.

If your processes are already good, then it's just a documentation and box-ticking exercise. No one in production should need to care or change anything.

You can produce buckets of s**t, so long as that's what your docs say.

 

[GreenFish]

This is really good feedback, thank you.

Generally hearing that there are two types of ISO 9001 "clients"

1. Larger organisations who want to document their existing processes. I've actually seen some businesses now where they want to start from scratch", tear up their existing quality management system and have some process control in place. Ironically, this is the point of 9001 (process approach) but they have been sold or produced a system hat nobody knows or cares about and doesn't actually reflect what they do.

Sometimes this is also the case of where they had a quality manager, that person left and now they have a system that was created by the quality manager that is way too complicated. I guess it kept the quality manager in work though

2. Smaller businesses that required ISO 9001 to tender for larger organisation. These smaller business essentially just need the certificate but are often "over sold" complex system from certification companies or consultants. Quite often I come across systems that have been introduced by consultants who jut copy and paste and templated system, - sometimes even the previous company name isn't changed! For these smaller companies I think they just needed the bare basic to comply with ISO9001, otherwise it becomes a burden.


I'm probably calling out my own profession here but I would rather help companies (they have enough to deal with!) than sell them a complicated system.

 

[mikedoyle]

It’s great to see an open discussion about ISO 9001! Your approach to answering questions as an ISO consultant is really insightful and helpful for anyone considering certification. ISO 9001 can feel complex initially, but understanding its focus on quality management, customer satisfaction, and process improvement is key to making it work effectively for a business. It’s not just about ticking boxes but about genuinely enhancing business operations and consistency. For companies on the fence, having clear guidance from consultants like yourself can make the journey to certification much smoother and more valuable in the long run. Thanks for sharing your expertise!