Hazardous Waste Regulations

The legislation covering Hazardous waste and its disposal is very clear. Any substances clearly labelled as hazardous or any hazardous material arising during a production process must be segregated into a controlled area.

Hazardous waste can only be disposed of at designated sites by an approved contractor registered to dispose of that type of waste at the designated site.

The company must clearly describe the type of waste and the quantity of waste on the waste consignment note which the disposal company must provide as a record for the customer. This note must state details of the disposal site. These hazardous waste consignment notes must be retained for a minimum of 3 years

Radnor Hills mineral water company has ISO14001 certification

This company has invested £3 million in a new production facilty to provde water for sale in cans instead of plastic bottles. The owner, speaking on local radio, stated that the capacity of this facility will be a million cans a year which is only a small proportion of the 130 millions plastic bottles of water they produce. The company is proud that they do not have to send any waste to landfill and have achieved certification to ISO14001 the environmental management standard.

KPI targets for quality and environmental management

An important requirement for the ISO9001 and 14001 Standards is that the senior management set KPI targets for Quality and/or Environmental compliance. these KPIs have to be meaningful, measurable and achievable. For these KPIs companies have to collect and analyse data in order to monitor how the company is performing against these KPIs.

It is also a requirement of the Standards for senior management to communicate how the company is doing against these KPIs on a regular basis. Some olients do this through regular briefing groups or keeping employees up to date on the works noticeboards. However there are several companies who I have to remind that the Standard requires the collected data to be analysed and communicated to the employees. These companies are missing out on the benefits obtained from being able to react to real time adverse trends against the KPIs.

In manufacturing companies reject and scrap targets are set which the shop floor can have a major impact on. Where companies are publishing regular updates on these KPIs there is a genuine feeling from the work force that they can help to meet these KPIs.

Client support last week

Last Tuesday one of my clients, who supplies safety equipment vertical lifts , had his annual surveillance from a new auditor representing Lift Certs.The auditor, who had recently joined Lift Certs from UKASi, had a very detailed knowledge of ISO9001 2015 and its relevance to the Lift industry. I found the outcome of the audit extremely gratifying as the auditor did not find any non-compliances during the audit nor did he report any opportunities for improvement in the final report.

Audit Support for ISO 9001 2015 clients

This week I have provided the first of 2 days planned internal audits for a manufacturing client in Redditch. When I arrived, despite having booked the visit 2 weeks previously, the business owner, who was at his desk, was not expecting my visit and was out for most of the morning which meant I had to focus on those parts of the audit schedule not requiring his direct input.

The company are certified by BSI, who provide password protected access to the previous year’s report via their portal which I cannot access directly. The report was not available so I had to wait while this was accessed and printed off before I could check whether the report included any non-conformities and opportunities for improvements.

I completed 11 internal audits during the day and I will return to the client in 2 weeks to do the remaining 7 internal audits followed byassisting with a full management review of all the areas required for ISO9001 2015. Once these have been completed the client should be prepared for the external surveillance visit in January 2020.

The management review includes reviewing the Quality Objectives and how the company is performing against these objectives as well as reviewing and, if relevant to the business, revising them. Other key areas looked at include reviewing the strategic and process risks to the business and updating where relevant ; resources including the operation of the Quality Management Systems; external and internal non-conformities; performance of providers and additions to the approved list.

For the majority of my clents, who are already certified to ISO9001 2015 with a UKAS registered company, my annual total involvement is 3 days which includes 1 day’s support for the annual surveillance visit.

Working with my clients

Once I have successfully helped SME busniesses in engineering and manufacturing to achieve certification to ISO9001 my clients can and do make use of my 30 year + experience working in senior technical roles in different businesses involved in the processing of metals, plastics and ceramics.

I specialize in working with SME businesses in the engineering and manufacturing sector who realize that they need ISO9001 2015 certification to grow their customer base. If you are part of an SME company in the Midlands, South West England or East Wales and would like a free 1/2 day visit to learn more about what is involved in the certification process then contact me on 07769 614021 or email me at phil@philbrownconsultancy.co.uk ; website is http://www.philbrownconsultancy.co.uk

ISO9001 2015 Certification

For SME Businesses in Manufacturing who work with plastics or metals I have 15 years experience helping and supporting companies to achieve certification to ISO9001. Prior to setting up my own business in 2003, I worked in manufacturing for 30 years. I had a number of technical roles firstly in the steel rope industry followed by the car industry and finally in the ceramics industry where my roles included Technical Management initially followed by responsibilty for Quality Management including external certification to BS5750 which was replaced by ISO9001.

If you are an SME company in manufacturing looking to achieve certification to ISO9001 2015 then I would be delighted to hear from you.

You can contact me via my website at http://www.philbrownconsultancy.co.uk or email me at phil@philbrownconsultancy.co.uk

Mobile number is 07769 614021

understanding ISO9001 2015 Section 8.4 Control of externally provided processes, products and services

This section covers all parts of the final package ,supplied to customers, which are provided by suppliers who are not part of the compamy. The aim here is to make sure that the company has put in place methods and means for checking that the supplied products, processes and services are supplied to the required specification. Companies are required to keep records of these checks and that they have methods in place for identifying and segregating out of specification products and processes and returning to the supplier to be corrected or replaced..

Where processes or services provided by a supplier are found not to be to specification evidence of actions taken with supplier to correct the problem is required.

These requirements also apply to internal suppliers within a company where different parts of a final product are produced at one or more other sites separate from the final production site.

How will Brexit affect ISO certification?

I keep getting asked this question. The answer is not atall. The ISO standards are International standards which have been adopted as Euronorm standards by Europe. No matter what happens with the Brexit negotiations companie’s ISO certifications will still be valid.

However it is not the case for CE marked products. If the UK leaves Europe without a deal on the 31st October CE marked product will no longer be accepted in Europe. Furthermore where UK companies have built up stocks of CE marked parts to assemble the finished product it is likely that these products will not be accepted in Europe either.

Understanding ISO9001 2015 Section 8.3 Design and development of Products and services

This area of the standard is all about companies having design and development processes in place which ensure that the company provides what the customers have asked for.
So it covers the customer requirement inputs and the design process checks and controls that are in place to ensure the outputs meet the customer requirements.
The Standard also requires documented records of any authorised changes in the customer requirements.