The basis for preparation is the latest version of the Standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The document is quite elaborate, well-organized and detailed in a systematic manner.

The adoption of a High Level Structure for all Management Systems Standards by ISO has made it reasonable for all organizations to leverage on a robust management system established for any one of the standards initially and subsequent inclusion of other required and relevant standards.

Another fundamental requirement to begin with is to carefully describe the context of the organization’s initiative and define the goals and objectives it wishes to achieve.

Preparation involves the study and an initial assessment – based on the Standard and the Context or Strategic Intent of the Organization – of gaps that need to be addressed to make the operating management system compliant with the requirements of the standard.

Trained and qualified professionals can complete this assessment within a few days and set the expectations of the program. 

The degree of knowledge and expertise of people involved in a Certification project varies from basic awareness at one end to a high level of command over the subject matter, at the other end of the spectrum. Normally a few key people need to be trained and preferably certified – who leads and drives the project. A moderate level of knowledge and command is suggested for key decision makers and a generic level of understanding their roles and deliverables in context of the requirements of the standard for all other involved in the project – either directly or indirectly.

An important point to highlight is that – like all other knowledge management – the exercise of training and awareness should not be a one-time activity. The program or project must evaluate and design these interventions to create best advantages for the organization and its people.

Further, it may be emphasized that the training and awareness sessions should be a good mix of theory and practice to deliver maximum benefit.

Our service plan takes cognizance of these factors and ensures a comprehensive approach when designing the program or project for the entity. 

Managing a project or a program end-to-end is an art, involving skills of systems thinking, process design, data management and analytics, ability to switch between macro and micro elements swiftly, excellent interpersonal skills, the ability to harmonize multiple delivery channels and balancing the needs and expectations of a variety of stakeholders, and much more.

Applying this approach of project management to initiate, plan, implement, evaluate and establish a Quality Management System (as per ISO 9001 standard) provides a great advantage to the organization, its stakeholders and the people.

Our services embrace this concept, and all our services plans follow the methodology of successful project management.

On completion of implementation of a Management System (e.g. QMS as per ISO 9001 standard) with reasonable degree of confidence that the operations and practices comply with the requirements, the best practice and the recommendation of the standard is to conduct internal reviews and audits to test the system.

For this, Internal Auditors – duly trained and certified to conduct audits for a Management System as per ISO Standards – are assigned the responsibility to plan and conduct audits of all functions and units in scope, record findings of non-conformity – if any, and publish audit reports for the attention of management teams. The fundamental idea of these internal audits is to promote a culture of continuous improvement through identification of gaps, applying solutions of improvement, and repeating the cycle.

Management Review by the Top Management (that is, Board of Directors, Executive Committees, etc.) is a mandatory governance requirement of the ISO Standards.

These responsibilities cannot be delegated or outsourced – and must remain within the designated functions internally. However, our set of specialized services in this category are prepared in a way that assists the key functions and key stakeholders to undertake these activities with as much ease as possible – depending on the context, the environment and complexity of the overall program – without any breach of the requirements of ISO Standards. 

Our experience has taught us that there is no way a single design can satisfy the needs and expectations of all organizations and / or their stakeholders. Each entity is unique and naturally, one basic characteristic of all project planning or program design endeavours is to apply some customized solutions and services to make the plan a best-fit.

To address this uniqueness, our team is prepared and trained to deal with specific scopes, purposes, expectations, objectives, and so on – to combine with standard project management features and create an overall program design – which satisfies the stakeholders.

The evaluation is quite straightforward in the sense that the activity involved is identification and analysis of gaps in existing policies and procedures and practices – as compared to the set of requirements specified in the ISO Standards.

There are a set of common specifications – referred to as the High Level Structure – in the ISO Standards and there are a set of specific requirements based on the purpose of the Management System. For Quality Management System, the requirements of an ISO 9001 are the points of reference. For any other system such as Environment Safety Management, Risk Management, Information Security Management, Business Continuity Management, and so on, the respective ISO Standards will be the points of reference.  

Our team of experts can quickly study the existing operating environment and publish a Readiness Report – to help the aspiring organization to evaluate the existing state of operations and the interventions / actions required to achieve a state of compliance.