What Does ISO Certified Mean?
ISO is an International Organization for Standardization and being certified to this standard proves that you properly maintain quality objectives in order to ensure customer satisfaction. AS9100c is the quality management standard for the aerospace industry and supersedes the ISO 9001 because it has even higher quality standards that must be followed by a company in order to meet the requirements of the standard. These standards are monitored, audited, and are guidelines for an organization’s key processes that ensuring the company adheres to quality standards. The ISO 9000 family addresses various aspects of quality management and contains some of ISO’s best known standards. The standards provide guidance and tools for companies and organizations who want to ensure that their products and services consistently meet customer’s requirements, and that quality is consistently improved.
Standards in the ISO 9000 family include:
• ISO 9001:2008 – sets out the requirements of a quality management system
• ISO 9000:2005 – covers the basic concepts and language
• ISO 9004:2009 – focuses on how to make a quality management system more efficient and effective.
• ISO 19011:2011 – sets out guidance on internal and external audits of quality management systems.
***Farmer’s Copper became ISO 9001 certified in April of 2007 and in June of 2011 the AS9100c certification was achieved. Farmer’s key processes are as follows:
• Sales
• Purchasing
• Production
• Inspection
• Shipping
Each of these processes is vital to improve customer satisfaction and efficiency. The processes have procedures, guidelines and on the job training to ensure that everyone understands and follows the system.
Each month the progress of each process is monitored and charted. These charts measure the percentage of each for compliance with the goal for 100% Customer Satisfaction. The charts are posted for all to monitor and track all processes.
More on ISO 9001:2008…
ISO 9001:2008 sets out the criteria for a quality management system and is the only standard in the family that can be certified to (although this is not a requirement). It can be used by any organization, large or small, regardless of its field of activity. In fact ISO 9001:2008 is implemented by over one million companies and organizations in over 170 countries.
This standard is based on a number of quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach and continual improvement. Using ISO 9001:2008 helps ensure that customers get consistent, good quality products and services, which in turn brings many business benefits.
Checking that the system works is a vital part of ISO 9001:2008. An organization must perform internal audits to check how its quality management system is working. An organization may decide to invite an independent certification body to verify that it is in conformity to the standard, but there is no requirement for this. Alternatively, it might invite its clients to audit the quality system for themselves.