Quality certification

How do you get a quality certification? 6 steps

How to get a quality certification

Quality certifications are a way for professionals and organisations to verify their skills and knowledge. They can make them more attractive to customers as well as show their commitment to the industry. It also could be a requirement to pass a procurement.

Quality certifications are important because they allow professionals and organisations to prove themselves and show their customers that they are interested in providing highest quality in their field.

Step 1 - Main areas

In order to get a quality certification, you first need to work through all the business main activities. Simply, you could divide them into:

  • Management
  • Marketing
  • Operations
  • HR
  • Finance

These areas are seen as the business main operation areas. 

Step 2 - Processes documentation

Thereafter you need to analyze and document all the main processes within all areas, for example, in HR you have:

  • Recruitment
  • Hiring
  • Staff care
  • Ending employment

The process document within each area should show step by step for example how a recruitment is done.

All processes are sorted under each main area.

Step 3 - Set documentations

Each process now should have attached required documents, files, systems or other solution that will maintain high quality! Here you could use most of your existing documents and syste4ms etc, but some might be required to be updated and some created new to ensure there is a document or system etc for each step of the process.

The documents/systems are marked individually to be easy to find and update under each process.

A very good advice is here to involv staff in the documentation, since they know their operations the best, otherwize a new and bad document/system, could cause unnecessary issues and costs.

Step 4 - Review all processes and documentation

Make a overall review of all processes and documentations so that all are included and that it works in real.

If you have choosen to create your own quality system and would like a certification, this is normally where a external auditor would check your quality system, by reviewing all the processes and documentations.

Step 5 - Get certified

When you have made all provious steps and had a external auditor verifying in step 4, you are normally approved for a quality certification.

Step 6 - Yearly review and updates

The most important step, is to maintain and continously improve the quality system by visiting the various business areas and check how the individual process and documentation work and improve accordingly. By making this, you are ensuring the best possible quality that will give satisfied customers, increased sales and profits!

If you need assistance or advice in how to get your quality certification, please contact us!

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Do we need a quality certification?

Quality certification also for small businesses

Many believe that a quality certification is only for large factories or manufacturing companies. Having ISO 9001 certification can help small businesses to substantial to grow their market.

Whether it’s a factory, an office, or a small business, quality certification can be of use. The reason for this is that having an ISO 9001 certificate means the company is taking the necessary steps to ensure its customers are getting the best service possible.

Quality certification is a process that assures customers that the products they are buying are of the highest quality. The certification also ensures that there is a system in place to ensure consistent quality. It also minimize the quality issues that normally involves alot of headache, worries and costs. It also can lead to loss of customers and badwill in form of a bad reputation.

Quality certifications can be some form of ISO9001 or similar quality certification, which establishes and maintains a system for the manufacture of goods and services to ensure customer satisfaction with regards to: effectiveness, performance, reliability and maintainability of products; transferability or reproducibility; and safety/environmental aspects.

A great quality system, will ensure growth and profits!

Read more about QCERT quality certification >>>

Do we need a quality certification? Read More »

Is a ISO9001 quality certification worth the money?

Is ISO9001 worth the money?

The ISO 9001 standard helps organizations to establish, document and maintain a quality management system. The key points of this standard are to provide the organization with the ability to create an effective quality management system. No matter what your company does, there are always some benefits to meeting the ISO9001 standards. There are also many different companies that invest in meeting these standards.

The ISO9001 standard is a set of requirements that ensure the customer will receive a high-quality product or service. This standard is typically most useful for manufacturing and other trade industries. The ISO 9001 certification is expensive because it requires time and effort to earn it. These two factors also make it difficult for organizations to know if they can get their money’s worth from this certification.

There are a lot of factors that determine if a company will be able to recoup their investment in applying for ISO 9001 certification, such as the size of the company, the size of their customer base and how quickly they can show an improvement in their quality management system.

The cost of an ISO 9001 certification can vary depending on the size of a company, but it can range from $10 000 to over $50,000. However, that isn’t the only expenses that come with registration as there’s also fees for auditors and other third-party services as well as additional training for employees. The total cost of an ISO 9001 certification can vary from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

The solution is actually to calculate the costs of a ISO9001 certification and estimate the financial benefits and as soon as there is a profit, it´s a good investment!

If you need a cheaper quality certification, please contact us for an free estimation!

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Does a cheap ISO9001 alternative exist?

A blog to explore whether it is possible to have a cheap quality certification.

Cost for ISO9001 certification

This is a question that many manufacturers and their certification bodies are asking when considering the cost of gaining quality control certification. The answer is no, there is no ISO9001 certification that is cheap. Every ISO9001 certificate will cost a company a good amount of money. Even if a company buys a certificate from a third-party, they will still have to pay for that service. So, the only way to have a cheap ISO9001 certification is to not have one at all.

Are there cheaper ISO9001 alternatives?

There are some third-party validation service that allows companies to self-certify their own quality management systems. With the evidence provided by their own documentation, companies can attest to follow the certification aquired.

Some of these certifications are branch adapted certification system, for example within the construction sector, where a large ISO9001 certification program is to expensive for smaller construction companies, leading to that only very large and also expensive construction companies will get construction contracts. This results in a unfair market competition and higher construction costs.

Thats why some construction organisations and unions, have set special certification requirement programs, to make it easier for smaller construction companies, to bid on larger contracts, but still keep a high quality level.

QCERT is another of these adapted certification programs, aimed for startups and service SME´s, that need a certification as proof of quality work to increase business success, ensure customers, staff, partners and investors that quality is a high priority as well to be able to participate in procurements for aquiring larger contracts.

Read more about QCERT quality certification >>>

Does a cheap ISO9001 alternative exist? Read More »