ISO 9001 Compliance

A strategy in business management that was initiated by Motorola, Six Sigma is a set of practices that today enjoys acceptance and more importantly respect world over. For initials, six sigma is a process that aims to reduce the defects and errors occurring in an organization along with the variations that occur in the different processes that go about in the company. This is done by a set of procedures and methods, most of which are management methods intended on improving quality. There are also some statistical methods that work on the numbers picture of the story.

The background of Six Sigma as already said lies with Motorola wherein Bill Smith formulated the set of practices for the strategy in 1986. Initially aimed at the manufacturing processes, it is today eventually being used in other industries and fields as well as they realize its importance. The formulation and initial layout of Six Sigma was heavily inspired by various different processes that had become standard quality improvement methods over the last half century or so. These processes were the ones that had been tried and tested over a period of decades and had returned solid results and six sigma in turn was developed on their strong holds.

Every quality manager and auditor relies on the ISO audit checklist in order to track, monitor and verify the progress before, during and after certification.  The audit checklist is also used as a reference for both internal and independent auditors for assessing the organization's quality management system.  To understand the kind of quality management checks you and your company have to perform, here are criteria commonly found in ISO audit checklists:

We have heard how working with the Six Sigma strategy can help organizations go places and increase their profit margins and customer satisfaction by drastic amounts. So, if Six Sigma is capable of doing such amazing things, there must definitely be a process or people who would be trained to help fulfill the goals that it lays down. Yes, there are. Generically they are known as Six Sigma certified professionals although as we delve deeper into the realms of Six Sigma, we will see that they have specific names and a hierarchy for themselves based on which they can be differentiated.

This classification is done in categories or layers. In this lies the different ‘belts’ of Six Sigma. You must have heard of Black belt, Green Belt etc. in Six Sigma, that’s what this is:

There are more than enough ISO standards to confuse any organization that's looking to get certified.  Today, there are over 16,000 standards being used by certifying bodies to assess, monitor and audit any organization seeking to improve its quality management system.  Here is a short explanation on what these standards are and their specific usages:

The term ISO 9000 is probably familiar to you, whether you work for an organization which has been certified or for one which is still attempting to obtain a certification.  In the U.S. alone, thousands of companies have already undergone ISO 9000 certification and many more are applying for one.  So what exactly is ISO 9000 and what can it offer your organization?