Due to business expansion my business is looking for an auditor for both ISO9001 and ISO14001 to provide auditing support to the business. My clients are based in Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire and I am particularly interested in talking to nyone who could cover Gloucestershire, South Herefordshire and South Worcestershire.
The data protection regulations (GDPR) will come into effect in late May this year to be followed by the requirement for companies with ISO9001 and/or ISO14001 Certifiction to transition to the 2015 versions of these 2 Standards by mid September this year.
Do companies appreciate the full implications of GDPR and do they realize the full extent of the data they will need to protect? I suspect that in many small companies the senior management are struggling to fully protect data held by the company such as customer information and employee records.
As regards the ISO9001 and ISO14001 2015 Standards the requirements for senior management to have full ownership of the Quality and Environmental Management Systems will in some cases be a wake up call for the Senior Management. No longer will this be delegated to a management representative and furthermore they must be able to convince external auditors that they are fully committed to the Management Systems.
The new clauses in the Standards regarding, Context of the organisation; assessment of risks and opportunities and Leadership have to be fully addressed by company senior management.
the ISO9001 2008 and ISO14001 2004 Standards were both reissued in 2015 and companies were given 3 years to achieve certification to these revised Standards. Certification to the previous versions of the Standard will no longer be valid after September 2018. However it would appear that a significant proportion of companies with certification to the old version of the Standards have yet to apply for certification to the revised Standards.
The big question is will companies get round to registering for transition to the revised standards and if so, will the certification companies have the capacity to carry out the necessary audits? Or will companies let their certification lapse as happened when ISO9001 2000 replaced the previous 1994 version of ISO9001?
2 new associates have joined my business in the last few weeks; these are John Inwood of Outwood Business Services who can provide consultancy support on data and information security and prepare companies to get certification for ISO27001, the information security Standard. Also joining the consultancy is Michael Doolin of Clover HR, who is drawing on 25+ years experience working on HR for BA and PWC . Michael has set up his consultancy to provide support to SME businesses.
Since Easter I have so far had 7 1/2 days supporting through either their annual ISO9001 surveillance visit or Stage 2 certification for ISO9001 or Achilles 1st review assessment. All have gone really well with virtually no non-conformances and very few observations. Next week I am supporting a further 2 of my clients with their annual surveillance visits. Alongside these audits I am working with a client who requires certification for ISO9001 2015, having not renewed his certification when ISO9001 2000 replaced the 1994 Standard. Hopefully June will be a little quieter!
Since the start of the year I have had five new enquiries to help companies achieve ISO9001 certification. 3 of these companies are in manufacturing and 2 in the service sector. In addition I have also been asked by 2 companies to provide a part time Quality Manager role for them. This business represents more work for me than I had in the whole of 2015. In addition this year with the publishing of ISO9001 2015 last September I will be working with my existing client base of 20+ companies to modify their management systems to enable them to achieve certification to ISO9001 2015 before their current certificate expires or by September 2018 at the latest.
4 potential new clients have approached me to get them certified for ISO9001. 2 architects, a stainless steel fabrication company and a product design company. I have already had meetings with 2 of the clients and quoted for the work and the other 2 I have arranged to meet in January.
The revised standards were published this autumn. Companies have until autumn 2018 to change their ISO9001 2008 and ISO14001 2004 Certification to the revised standards but ,once UKAS has approved the certification companies to certify to the revised standards, companies will be encouraged to change their systems to comply to the revised standards.
I have just returned from 5 weeks holiday in Australia and Singapore; the holiday of a lifetime. Visited Perth, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, the Great Ocean road, Adelaide, Alice Springs, Ayers Rock and finally 3 days in Singapore. the whole trip was booked through Freedom Australia and it was extremely well organised. I am now back helping clients with their quality systems plus external audits. My client Atwell International have their annual external audit next Tuesday and 2 more clients have the same between now and Christmas.
My manufacturing client in Hereford is moving forward towards ISO9001 Certification. The internal audits went well and the subsequent management revue has now been completed and he is in the process of applying for certification with a view to complete the Stage 1 and 2 assessments by the end of the year. He needs the Standard as his main customers supply the aerospace industries in USA.
This is yet another family business that I have helped achieve ISO9001 Certification with a UKAS registered company.
