What is ISO Compliance

What is ISO Compliance?

Have you heard that a business is “ISO compliant” and wondered, “Hmmm. What does that mean? What is ISO compliance?” Here’s a way to look at it. …

What is ISO Compliance?

Let’s say you just opened up a new restaurant, and you know the inspector from the health department is coming by next week. You want to make sure your restaurant is in great shape for his inspection, but it’s all still new to you.

That’s when you call your friend, who has many years of experience in helping other restaurant owners to successfully pass health department inspections. The friend comes over to your restaurant and looks through all the things that he knows the health inspector will check, giving you advice along the way about what can be improved to make sure you get a thumbs-up from the health department.

Well, the thumbs-up from the health department would be like the approval from an ANAB-accredited Certification Body. The visit from the health inspector would be like the ISO “audit.”

And an agency like Trident QMS would be the friend you called on for help.

More Specific Answers to the Question: What is ISO Compliance?

What is ISO Compliance

Established in 1947, the International Organization for Standardization sets guidelines for a variety of businesses, such as those related to food safety, vehicles, health care and manufacturing. If a business is following the rules, it is “ISO compliant.”

ISO has published more than 21,000 international standards.

You might have heard that ISO compliance is not required by law, and that’s true. But put it this way: Universities are not required to be accredited either, but would you want your son or daughter going to one that is not? Or would you feel much better about sending your child to a university that has an independent agency saying, “Yes, this place is great!”

Check the promotional literature from universities. You will see that they note that the university is accredited. In fact, universities will send out press releases after they are accredited or re-accredited.

That sounds familiar, right? That’s because you’ve probably read about it online or heard about it on the news. See how that worked?

Just like a university uses accreditation to prove to families that that is where their children should obtain their education, businesses that are ISO Certified can use that to prove to customers that they adhere to an internationally recognized standard that requires them to take accountability of problems or potential problems and to constantly pursue improvement efforts so that they can better satisfy their customers.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that even though ISO compliance is not required, a business could get into trouble for having errors. For example, if your business is based on developing drawings or materials used for building product, you may not be required to follow the ISO Standard, but you better believe you’ll get into trouble if the drawings or materials you provided were found to cause failure to the final product or possible injury to the end user.

Call on your Friends for Advice

Trident QMS is here to help you obtain that ISO certification that is so important to the reputation and future of your business. You can contact us through our website or by phone at 520-314-4343. We would be happy to tell you more about ISO compliance if you need additional information.

Posted in ISO Tools.

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