We’ve often heard and read about “ISO 9001” - a set of standards that enable businesses to meet with the needs of the stakeholder (customers, employees, investors, and so on) within statutory requirements. Interestingly, the ISO 9001 is the standard based upon which most of the other standards are established. While one might consider them to be only compliance standards by far, in 2015, things changed when the PDCA (Plan-do-check-act and/or plan-do-check-adjust) cycle was adopted.
This adoption has enabled ISO 9001 to provide a path for organizations to not just create repositories of information but also organize this information in valuable formats. This can help organizations improve and advance numerous processes and practices in their structure and business operations. Plus, documented information can also help not just a single department but multiple departments to work collaboratively, reduce redundancies, boost time and resource efficiency, and provide the best value to not just external stakeholders (customers, leads) but also internal stakeholders (employees, investors).
The relationship between Document Management and ISO 9001 is simple yet important. ISO 9001 requires organizations to follow controlled documentation. The complete standards and processes related to documented information are mentioned in clear terms in Point 7.5 of the ISO 9001. Here, documented information is more than just a written record of procedures and business plans detailed in a few bullet points.
Any document, intellectual asset, or creative asset related to your organization must be well organized as part of documented information. This includes pictures, promotional videos, audios, product demo videos, 3D models, income statements, balance sheets, marketing briefs, and more. This means that anything that is related to the operations of the business and can be recorded needs to be considered as information to be documented.
Another prerequisite to identifying whether you need to document a particular information or not is whether keeping and analyzing this information can help you deliver better and improved value to your key stakeholders. If the answer to this is ‘Yes,’ you must go ahead and document the information.
To get started with becoming compliant with document management adherence in ISO 9001, you need to detail your quality management. Once this is done, you’ll need to organize all pertinent information. Remember, this isn’t a one-time work which you do and forget about later. Document management is a continuous effort one needs to put in and regularly update so that your business gets the best results out of it. Anything less than this will only render itself to be of no value. One wonders - what are the benefits of Documented information, and what are we trying to achieve by doing so?
Before embarking on compliance and adherence to the standards detailed in ISO 9001, one must understand the objective behind doing so. Only when we have clarity into the “why” of the scenario can we truly stay on-track with fulfilling the requirements. Interestingly, there are two main objectives behind implementing and requiring organizations to be compliant with documented information requirements of ISO 9001.
The control of documented information of an organization via the ISO 9001 standards might seem restricting and bureaucratic; however, it has its own benefits, which, if an organization recognizes, can take business operations to unimaginable heights. The control of documented information helps:
You wouldn’t need to spend hours looking for a piece of crucial information when it can be immediately accessed via the document management system. This reduces delays in projects, processes, and so on, and helps you stay on track for timely deadline completions.
With redundancies and blocks to information flow out of the way, documented information boosts time and energy efficiency and also enables employees to work at improved productivity rates.
If you put in best efforts in detailing every little piece of information along with its related visual assets, the need for consulting someone else for doubts on clarity is minimized phenomenally since your reading comprehension is now improved.
With increased efficiency, productivity, reading comprehension, and a better organized organizational structure, the quality of your business operations is improved significantly. Shipments are sent timely, processes and systems are updated to perfection, marketing briefs are on-point, and there are no obstructions to the flow of information, whether top to bottom or bottom to top.
ISO 9001:2015 has revolutionized the way documents are managed, and quality is improved in organizations. Rather than simply sitting on an abundance of information and doing nothing with it, the new and improved ISO 9001:2015 encourages organizations to identify weak areas in their business operations and strive for continuous improvements and excellence.
In light of the compliance requirement and benefits of ISO 9001 in relation to document management, organizations need to identify every opportunity available to them and leverage it to its maximum potential. By acting and adjusting according to the PDCA cycle, organizations now have the golden opportunity to transform their processes and leverage the benefits of documented information, which is more important than ever now.