ISO 9001 Changes Explained

Simon Batchelar: Hello everybody and welcome to this conversation all about the upcoming changes of the ISO standards. My name is Simon Batchelar and I am a marketing consultant from Pallant Studio, and we work predominantly with engineering and manufacturing companies to help them with all aspects of their marketing. And I'm joined today by Paul. So Paul, do you wanna give us a quick intro?

Paul Everington: Hi. Yeah, I'm Paul Everington, and I work for Everwell Associates. We also work with manufacturing and engineering. My background is in engineering predominantly working with quality and business resilience.

Simon Batchelar: Excellent, thank you. So today we're gonna be talking about the upcoming changes to ISO, predominantly 9001, but also 14001. And Paul today is gonna be explaining a little bit about what the changes are that are coming and also what we can do to get ready. So Paul, thinking about the ISO standards could you give us a sort of top level as to what some of the changes are that are coming to that standard?

Paul Everington: Well the current standard is 2015, they made great improvements in that one. I think they're gonna push even more towards involving the very senior management, they're very, very keen on that, that they take a, a particular interest in it and don't just delegate it right down. Specifically they're going to look at digitalisation, remote working things that we've seen that have changed obviously with COVID and so on. Document automation, that sort of thing. They're gonna be looking at increased risks again relating to COVID. They're looking at environmental standards, you mentioned ISO 14001, they will be embedding a little bit of that probably within the 9001 standards and supply chain resilience.

I think that's a, a very key one.

Everyone, you know, had a lot of problems during COVID obviously. They want you to look down the supply chain and see that they're reliable.

Simon Batchelar: I see. So, I mean, supply chain resilience obviously is something that's a lot of companies will be feeling the strain of that at the moment. No, no matter where they are in the supply chain, obviously with global tariff disruptions and just supply chains being sort of thrown up in the air and like rip it up and start again almost in some sectors. I think supply chain resilience and understanding where you sit in that supply chain, the risks up and downstream from you obviously is something that maybe a lot of people have been working on without even necessarily realising that it might become part of the ISO standard.

So I think maybe when we say this change is coming to ISO, do you see that being a large step change in terms of the amount of work that's involved? Or is it something that's gonna try and encompass work that businesses have already done or potentially working on at the moment?

Paul Everington: I think they will want to make a step change because a lot of people don't understand something as simple as approved suppliers list.

Some people think that means, oh my goodness, we've got to say there's 10 suppliers and we can only use those people. Now what it's about is that actually you can buy from pretty much anyone you like, but you need to look into them. You need to be responsible about it. You've got to check that the supply chain is reliable., If they've got ISO 9,001, for example, that's always a good sign. If you want to look into the company, at company's house, you might want to do that, not for all of your suppliers for minor screws and bolts and so on, but for your perhaps five or 10 key suppliers. Because we obviously hope COVID won't happen again, but there, there's always that risk and it is about risk assessment, and just trying to minimise the, the risk to your business.

Simon Batchelar: Yeah, and I think that's a really interesting angle because risk is obviously something that all businesses have. Hopefully they don't ever face too much of it head on, but I think the one thing we all know about risk is the more you've thought about it before you get to facing that risk, the better it would be.

Paul Everington: Yeah.

Simon Batchelar: And obviously there isn't necessarily the capacity in every business to think about all of the risks and plan for all of the scenarios, but at least having gone through your risks that you might face and grading them and working out, well, actually this one is fairly likely, this one is fairly unlikely. But to me, it's really interesting that that exercise that we've done recently with working with a business coach, which has been really interesting to kinda go through and look at some of those risks. It also opened our thinking to actually some opportunities that were there because when you are in that mind space of thinking about risks, you're also thinking.

But the risk is that it goes this way, but the opportunity perhaps is that it actually goes the other way and therefore we should probably start thinking about that. So, although you can frame this as a kind of standards and risk-based exercise, as we often talk about Paul, most of risk is actually finding lots of other things that you can do, that you can either improve iteratively if you've already got processes in place, or actually, as I just said, you can find some opportunities. So if you are thinking through some of the changes that are coming, do you see any other benefits that might be there for businesses sort of "hidden" as it were within this change?

Paul Everington: I think very often people tend to think ISO 9001, like all these standards is a burden. It's a box ticking exercise and it really is a huge opportunity as you highlight that actually yes, it, forces you to a certain extent 'cause you've got to comply, but it forces you to think about things beforehand so that, you, you get the benefits of it. People get very frightened by the phrase risk assessment.

It's really not worrying. We do it every day. As we come to the edge of a road, we do a risk assessment and then the reward is we cross the road.

So, you know, all of these things, there's some benefit and there's, there's probably a few distinct levels of risk assessment. So when you're looking at a supplier.

If they're a very large supply of electronic components or whatever well established your risk assessment is a, a microsecond. You just go, that's fine they're recognised supplier they've got an ISO 9001 Certificate there you go, my job is done.

Then there's separate risks, that is a business you look at, which isn't specifically within the remit of 9001, but is recommended, it's to stand back and, and look at business resilience. So we're all doing risk assessments all day, every day. And it's something not to be frightened about, but as you say, it's the opportunities as a result of it, you may get better suppliers, faster deliveries, better pricing because you take a small amount of time just to do the risk assessments.

Simon Batchelar: Well, yeah, I think we could obviously spend the next couple of hours di diving into all of the different changes are coming, but I think one thing that we've discussed is that actually the changes are still to be announced. They are coming and that will be evolving, over the next few months and years, as that all gets clarified and the amount of work that needs to be done is sort of understood in more detail. So if people are thinking, well, hang on I've got ISO 9001. What do I need to do? Is there anything that you can recommend they can start to look at now to help them get ahead so that when the changes are announced, they'll be ready to go as it were.

Paul Everington: Yes, I think there is a, a certain amount of, the data side, you know can you improve your digital systems? I mean, these are good things to do anyway. There's huge benefits, to any business. So try and embrace those, that's actually what ISO really want you to do is embrace the technology. Don't go overboard with digital, I mean, there's some suggestion that, oh, well, you know, quality approval can be done completely Don't think that's going to happen. I mean, you can do an awful lot obviously, in communicating in this sort of media. But as I, I'll say again, it's really not a box sticking exercise.

The whole point of it is to actually embed really good operating procedures with the staff, making them happier, more effective, more efficient and the business ultimately more profitable. That's the purpose of it. So yes, look at new technologies, look at new ideas. The other points I've referenced, yes, just, just look at your processes and just see if you are doing the right things. Then you've got time it's a little bit delayed. Their draft still hasn't come out. It's supposed to come out in June. It's going to be probably another few months. They not gonna go live till later next year, and they allow three years transition typically.

So on the one hand, don't feel that you're gonna be in huge trouble at your next assessment. On the other hand, given what I've just said, you know, get advantages now simply just documenting the sort of things that you as a good, responsible business would be doing to benefit the business. Again, not to tick a box. You, you really are gonna get benefits to the business with these, the expected improvements.

Simon Batchelar: Well, yeah, I think there's definitely a lot of opportunity coming and I think it's always worth, the senior management team taking a step back from your business if you can, and taking that overview of the whole business, looking at what's going on, seeing if there's any opportunities, you know, revisiting those risks and opportunities again, I think is a really positive activity. We've certainly found a number of opportunities in our business just by taking a, you know, half a day out with a coach to just take a look at it all and just explaining it to someone else has been a hugely beneficial process for us.

Paul Everington: You kindly recommended to me the E-Myth book by Michael Gerber. I mean, it's fabulous on that very point. It's, the whole point of these processes is to be able to pass down the transactional work, you know, the ordinary work to the rest of the team to free up management for the blue sky thinking. 'Cause that's what every business needs is, is the freedom for that blue sky thinking.

Simon Batchelar: Yeah, and I think that's what separates the businesses that are just running and keeping up and putting out fires all day with those that are actually evolving and growing and scaling.

Paul Everington: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Batchelar: Excellent. Well, thanks very much for sharing your insights there, Paul. If people are listening and they want to get in touch with you to find out more about what those changes are and how you might be able to help them with that, how would you recommend people get in touch with you?

Paul Everington: Well, they can see our website at everwell.associates or they can find me on LinkedIn. Paul Evington.

Simon Batchelar: Excellent. Well, yes, if you want to get in touch with me to talk about anything that we've spoken about in this video, then you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. So thank you very much everybody for listening and watching, and we'll see you in the next video.

Paul Everington: Thanks very much. Bye-bye.