With regard to the 2015 changes to the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 Standards, there are some very strong proposed improvements which will make them even more relevant to Construction. A vital addition to the planning and implementation of your management system is a new requirement to identify the risks and opportunities that can potentially impact the operation and performance of your system; as well as the corresponding ‘proportionate’ actions to address them.
Indeed, the 2015 changes to 9001 and 14001 will emphasise “risk-based thinking” and “actions to address risks and opportunities”. Businesses will be expected to identify critical customer-facing performance areas – and show how they can be improved. There are obvious benefits to both specialist and main contractors and the expectation upon a specialist to highlight risk areas to their main contractor customers is, for example, clearly consistent with another new requirement, to show the understanding of “context”. The ‘context’ of an organization (or its ‘business environment’) refers to the combination of internal and external factors and conditions that can have an effect on an organization’s approach to its products and services. As a result, consideration of an organization’s context must now be an element of the management system design and implementation process.
Foy Certification customers have always been massively encouraged to analyse potential risks, especially project risks under the old name of “preventive action”. This increased emphasis on risk based thinking should engender an interactive process in relation to risks and opportunities that would benefit both parties and is something a main contractor could insist on, as part of a wider expectation of their supply chain, if they are pushing the supply chain to become ISO certified.
ISO certification has always been about assuring your customers, accessing new markets, risk management and business improvement. The new changes bring risk management even more to the fore and will be an even stronger major element of Foy Certification’s guaranteed ISO Certification process.
Foy Certification still has limited availability for our programme “Guaranteed ISO Certification by Christmas”
This is for specialist contractors, starting in September 2015, and guarantees Triple ISO Certification by Xmas 2015 for those committed to do so.
Please register your interest via andrew@foycertification.com or laura@foycertification.com
