In a previous blog posted on the 28th August, ‘The New ISO 9001:2015’, we touched on the several changes that ISO 9001 has made in order for the standard to evolve and keep up to date. The last significant change to the standard was made in 2000, thus leaving fifteen years to catch up on an ever evolving world.
One of the key changes introduced was risk based thinking. Some of you may be aware that there is already a standard that covers risk management, ISO 31000. This provides the groundwork and guidelines for the risk management process within an organisation. However for those who do not wish to have ISO 31000, risk based thinking is now covered lightly within the new ISO 9001:2015.
Taking a risk based approach within an organisation can include identifying and assessing risks, taking reasonable steps to mitigate any risks that may be detrimental, monitoring your risk based thinking and continually analysing and reviewing room for improvement.
The benefits of risk based thinking include enhancing customer satisfaction, consistently looking to improve and adopting the ideology of prevention, and also assure reliability of goods and services. Risk thinking is already something we all do subconsciously on a day to day basis, so risk based thinking should be relatively straight forward and is something that is continuous.
Aside from all the changes that the new ISO 9001:2015 outlines, the fundamental objective of ISO 9001 will always stay the same, to improve productivity and efficiency and increase customer satisfaction.
22 September 2015