Performance Solutions Africa decided early in 2011 that it would be important for the organisation to obtain ISO 9001:2008 certification and as a result started working towards this, achieving certification at the end of that year. Once certified, we had to undergo annual audits to ensure that our Quality Management System and processes were being maintained and implemented. In addition, every 3rd year we are required to undergo a re-certification audit which we successfully achieved in 2014. In the years following PSA maintained its certification status by meeting the requirements of the annual audits, which are conducted by an external certification agency, in our case, SGS.
In 2017 the ISO 9001:2008 standard was replaced by the ISO 9001:2015 standard and PSA decided to make the transition. So, preparations commenced, and at the end of 2017 PSA underwent a 3-day audit and made a successful transition achieving certification against the requirements of the new standard. In December 2018 PSA successfully underwent its first annual audit against the new standard.
“What is ISO 9001: 2015? and, Why did PSA make the decision to become ISO certified?”.
ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System (QMS) is internationally recognised as the world’s leading quality management standard. It has been implemented by over one million organisations in over 170 countries globally! The implementation of this standard has required that we focus on the following principles of quality management and put systems in place to demonstrate their practical implementation, namely, customer focus and customer satisfaction, leadership, involvement of people, a process approach, a systemic approach to management, continual improvement, a factual approach to decision making and mutually beneficial supplier relationships.
The overall aim is that through the implementation of the ISO 9001:2015 standard, PSA consistently does the following:
- provides a quality service to its customers ensuring that we respond quickly to feedback received
- continually look at ways to improve
- has competent, well trained staff who perform at a high standard
- provides our customers with timeous, comprehensive and data supported progress reports as a result of maintaining an effective and efficient data management system
In conclusion, the ISO journey has been positive for PSA, as it has assisted us to be more focused and systematic in our approach to meeting our customers’ needs.