You have your ISO 9001 certificate but your quality system needs to be maintained. Perhaps you do not need a full time quality manager or quality engineer to manage your quality system but nevertheless someone has to do it. The costs of employing a good calibre professional can be high especially when including employee related costs. A consultant can provide you with the resource you need when you require it without increasing head count. At High Edge Consulting we can offer you ongoing maintenance of your Quality System. Whether you need someone to visit once a month or fortnightly to carry out the necessary paperwork, make recommendations and changes to your system or just guidance for your staff once a quarter, High Edge Consulting can provide you with contracts to suit your needs. Our maintenance contracts are for a minimum of 12 months and then month to month thereafter. Maintenance contracts are payable monthly spreading the costs over a year. Each contract is specific to our customers’ individual needs.
Your ISO 9001 quality system is up and running. Someone in the organisation has the responsibility for the day to day running and maintenance of your system or it is outsourced through a maintenance contract. Frequently the cost of employing a quality professional is prohibitive especially to SMEs and therefore the responsibility tends to lie with an existing member of staff. Your member of staff may maintain your quality system satisfactory but they may require regular support whether it be for reassurance they are doing something right, request for clarification on certain points, assistance with the annual management review, regular impartial internal audits or support during the compliance audit. High Edge Consulting offers a range of Service Agreements to provide support to your company and staff responsible for your quality system. Take a look at our
comparison chart to see the service agreements that are available. Our service agreements are for a minimum of 12 months and then month to month thereafter. All service agreements are payable monthly spreading the costs over a year. If you require any additional days for specific tasks these can be ordered at any time.
Internal audits are a part of any ISO 9001 quality system. Some organisations fall behind their internal audit schedule and catch up before their certification body re-audits them. Internal audits may be carried out by an independent third party who can audit regularly according to your audit schedule and be impartial in their view as to whether or not the quality system is being adhered to. Supplier audits (all so known as vendor audits) are frequently seen as an inconvenience. They may involve taking a valuable member of staff time to travel to the supplier carry out the audit and write the report. In addition to this, the person carrying out the audit must learn how to audit, complete the audit report and make recommendations. High Edge Consulting can provide you with a professional lead auditor that can take the work demands of audits from you. Your lead auditor will arrange a list of dates to coincide with your internal and supplier audit schedules so you know they will be kept on track. If required we can also arrange for our consultant to be present at your third party audits (certification and surveillance audits).
Training is an essential element in implementing and maintaining a quality system in your business. Training should start before the system implementation commences so that managers and staff (who are going to be involved in the implementation) have a good understanding of what ISO 9001 is and how to implement it successfully. Training does not stop there, ideally all staff need to have a basic understanding of what a quality system is and how it will affect them and the business they work for. It is often said that training should be seen as an investment for it gives staff tools they need to carry out their role more effectively. The training courses we offer include general areas and we can create any bespoke courses relevant to our portfolio. Our courses whilst general in nature are always tailored to reflect your business operations. This gives your staff genuine familiarity with what they are being taught on the course making the training session much more pertinent to their day to day routine. Click here to see the standard training courses we offer.
