ISO 9001:2008 is the latest update of ISO 9000, a series of standards developed and published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), that define, establish, and maintain an effective quality assurance system for manufacturing and service industries. These standards deal with the fundamentals of quality management systems and are available through national standards bodies.
Choosing a packaging supplier certified to ISO standards like LPS Industries is likely to result in not only higher quality products and services, but increased customer satisfaction as well.
ISO 9001, part of the ISO 9000 family, is the only internationally recognized auditable standard for the quality management of businesses. It applies to the processes that create and control the products and services an organization supplies, and prescribes systematic control of activities to ensure that the needs and expectations of customers are met. ISO 9001 is designed and intended to apply to virtually any product or service made by any process anywhere in the world.
It is important to realize that while ISO develops International Standards including management system standards such as ISO 9001, it is not involved in the certification to any of the standards it develops. Instead, certification is performed by external certification bodies which are largely private. Therefore a company or organization cannot be certified by ISO. When a company or organization is certified to an ISO standard, they receive a certificate from the certification body. Even though the name of the ISO standard appears on this certificate it’s the certification body that has issued it, not the ISO.
ISO 9001, including its latest update, ISO 9001:2008, is the only standard within this subsection’s family that an organization can become certified against, because it is the standard that defines the requirements of having a Quality Management System. The standard is based on eight quality management principles, chosen because they can be used to improve performance and achieve success. These eight principles are:
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Focus on your customers
Understand customer needs, meet their requirements and exceed their expectations.
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Provide leadership
Set the direction the organization should take and create an environment that encourages people to achieve the organization’s objectives.
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Involve your people
Encourage the involvement of people at all levels and help people develop and use their abilities.
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Use a process approach
Manage the processes that make up the organization, the interaction between these processes, and the inputs and outputs that bond these processes together.
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Take a systems approach
Identify interrelated processes and treat them as a system of interrelated or interacting elements that determine how quality policies are implemented and quality objectives are achieved.
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Encourage continual improvement
Make a permanent commitment to continually improve the overall performance of the organization.
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Get the facts before you decide
Base decisions on analysis of factual information and data.
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Work with your suppliers
Maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with your suppliers to help them create value.
