What does an ISO consultant do?

An ISO consultant provides consultancy services regarding the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). In this article, we will talk about why hiring an ISO consultant is crucial for the success of your certification process, by describing their roles and responsibilities.

What is the purpose of ISO?

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was created with the purpose of bringing standardisation across different industries. This independent, non-governmental body has 167 member agencies, as of 2021. The members of ISO work together to develop standards that encore efficiency, safety, quality of systems, services and products.

The standards were created to end discrepancies across different organisations, helping to level the playing field for both large industries and small businesses. A few decades ago, there was a global problem of people using different processes and methods to produce the same products or services.

This was the age before the advent of the internet and people were not aware of international best practises. The result of this inconsistency was that the same products across different continents were demonstrating different levels of quality, safety, functionality or efficiency.

Additionally, sometimes, the same products produced at two time periods were different in quality. To end this carnage, ISO standards were created in a quasi-legal and flexible manner so that every industry can use it as a guide to bring about consistency in their processes.

ISO certification process

As mentioned above, ISO standards were created to fit every organisation, regardless of their sector, size, complexity or maturity. It is this flexibility that makes the ISO certification process both easy and difficult.

Align ISO processes with the recommendations

Essentially, business owners need to align their processes with the recommendations of their chosen ISO standard. In other words, they need to ensure that every clause outlined in the standard is being addressed and implemented. After implementing the clauses of the chosen standard, they build a management system that needs to undergo an audit by a certification body in order to be granted a certificate.

ISO requirements and documentation

Now, the problem is that the entire standard is written in a quasi-legal language, which makes it both vague and specific. So, business owners who are reading the standard may not understand the requirements at all or maybe overwhelmed by them. Alternatively, sometimes they may overestimate the importance of certain requirements, leading to surplus documentation.

This is extremely popular when people are adopting ISO 9001, a standard that focuses on quality management. Although, the earlier versions wanted a quality manual, business owners who were not aware of its importance saw it as a requirement to duplicate all their processes, leading to a giant textbook of frivolous information.

Hence, in other words, the common problems that prolong the certification process is not understanding the requirements related to process evaluation and documentation management. This is why, many business owners choose to hire an ISO consultant.

Role of an ISO consultant

An ISO consultant is an individual who has received intensive training in the standard requirements and implementation. Moreover, due to their experience, they are able to sort through your documents and help you achieve compliance in the shortest amount of time.

Build a new management system

If we have to break it down, an ISO consultant in Australia come to your organisation and observe how your processes are working. After this, they suggest an ISO standard that is the most beneficial for you. After the initial discussion, they conduct a gap analysis. The purpose of a gap analysis is to highlight the differences in your current practises and the requirements of your chosen ISO standard. Based on this assessment, they suggest to either modify your processes or to build a completely new management system.

Internal audits and improve ISO processes

Their job does not stop here. After building a management system, they help you observe it for a few months, conducting internal audits, so that you can tweak any minor inconsistencies or further improve its processes. Some people state that corrective and preventive actions suggested by ISO consultants are the reason why they are hired.

These corrective actions act like a surgery, dissecting any areas of your processes that are not up to the mark, whereas, preventive actions act like an insurance, helping to ensure that you do not encounter any non-conformances.

External audit and ISO documentation

It is their opinion of your management system that will give you the confidence to undergo an external audit. It is with their help, that your documentation will be perfectly aligned to the requirements of your chosen standard. Their expertise will ensure that there is no duplication of documents, no redundancies, and all documents that are produced are concise, clear and succinct.

When thinking of selecting an ISO consultant, we recommend that you interview a few consultancy services and select the one that feels the most trustworthy to you. However, do not just choose a consultant based on assumptions. Gather real data. Research about your shortlisted consultancy service to find out about their specialisation, reputation, cost in comparison to others, success rate and experience.

Conclusion

The role of an ISO consultant is to help you in every stage of the certification process, thereby increasing its speed and improving the efficiency of your management system.