Can Business Units seek ISO Certification Independently?

[NSXFan]

I'm a newbie and have been tasked with implementing ISO 9001:2000 in our Business Unit although our company as a whole has not implemented ISO in any form. Can this be done?

Specifically we are providing a Logistics/Inventory Management service to support our construction development projects.

We have a new facility that we are constructing that will be let's say our "Logistics Hub" and this facility should be setup for ISO certification.

Does anyone suggest going another route of ISO compliance rather than ISO 9001:2000?

THank you for the responses in advance.

NSXfan

[Stijloor]

Hello NSXFan,

Welcome to The Cove Forums!

Originally Posted by NSXFan

I'm a newbie and have been tasked with implementing ISO 9001:2000 in our Business Unit although our company as a whole has not implemented ISO in any form. Can this be done?

Yes. It would be good to know for you why Top Management made that decision. It should be part of an overall business strategy. That strategy and supporting actions, necessary resources, etc., is often lacking. Implementation of an ISO 9001-based quality management system can not be a one-person effort.

Originally Posted by NSXFan

Specifically we are providing a Logistics/Inventory Management service to support our construction development projects.

Can work very well.

Originally Posted by NSXFan

We have a new facility that we are constructing that will be let's say our "Logistics Hub" and this facility should be setup for ISO certification.

Just to obtain a certificate of registration or to implement an effective quality management system?

Originally Posted by NSXFan

Does anyone suggest going another route of ISO compliance rather than ISO 9001:2000?

Not sure what you mean here....

Originally Posted by NSXFan

Thank you for the responses in advance.

NSXfan

Glad to be of some help.

Stijloor.

[harry]

Welcome NSXFan,

From a practical and business point of view, I think it depends on how the business units are structured - independence versus closely inter-related.

In my country, many banks claimed certification to ISO 9001. If you look carefully at the fine prints, you'll find that most of them have their 'Credit Card' division certified but not the rest. The reason is that the rest are so closely related and inter-twinned.

Others like some insurance companies have the service part of their organization certified. Nobody cares about the other parts of their business because they are highly regulated.

Just check with some of your local Certification Bodies. They'll be more than pleased to guide you.

[Mark R.]

Fan:

Separate business units can usually be certified with no problem, but it will depend on the degree of independence between groups. If there is too much overlap between functions (training, HR, purchasing, etc.) it may be difficult to segregate activities. This can lead to "scope drift" and can cause a lot of problems in your program's administration (and may hurt your chances for registration), particularly where one activity is "ISO" and the next subsequent activity is not.

Hope this helps,

Mark

[Paul Simpson]

Originally Posted by harry

In my country, many banks claimed certification to ISO 9001. If you look carefully at the fine prints, you'll find that most of them have their 'Credit Card' division certified but not the rest. The reason is that the rest are so closely related and inter-twinned.

This is the whole of the problem. The idea with scope and exclusions in ISO 9001.2000 was that the organization didn't pick and choose where they applied the QMS and obtain certification for those bits.

Then ISO 9000.2005 came out and blew that completely out of the water with the definition of organization. Hence you get (occasionally deliberate) misleading advertising of certification for small parts of a large organization implying the whole is certified.

[AndyN]

Originally Posted by NSXFan

I'm a newbie and have been tasked with implementing ISO 9001:2000 in our Business Unit although our company as a whole has not implemented ISO in any form. Can this be done?

Specifically we are providing a Logistics/Inventory Management service to support our construction development projects.

We have a new facility that we are constructing that will be let's say our "Logistics Hub" and this facility should be setup for ISO certification.

Does anyone suggest going another route of ISO compliance rather than ISO 9001:2000?

THank you for the responses in advance.

NSXfan

You can........but should you? What I mean is that unless your management is looking for a certificate to 'run up the flag pole', then beware.

One reason for using ISO 9001 (I don't think there's another 'route', as you ask) is to give confidence to management and customers (and poss. regulatory agencies like safety folks) that the processes of the organization work in concert with each other to deliver what was planned. So doing one part of the business, in isolation (or without a plan to roll it out in other areas) should be viewed with suspicion, IMHO.

Do your leadership understand what this is about? Have they some grounding in ISO 9000 and understand what they're asking you to embark upon? If not, I'd recommend some help, either for you to pass on, or directly to the management.

[Sidney Vianna]

Originally Posted by Paul Simpson

This is the whole of the problem. The idea with scope and exclusions in ISO 9001.2000 was that the organization didn't pick and choose where they applied the QMS and obtain certification for those bits.

Then ISO 9000.2005 came out and blew that completely out of the water with the definition of organization. Hence you get (occasionally deliberate) misleading advertising of certification for small parts of a large organization implying the whole is certified.

I will respectfully disagree. The justifiable exclusion of processes towards claiming compliance with ISO 9001 has nothing to do with the organizational boundaries going for certification. Imagine a huge organization such as GE, with hundreds of plants, hundreds of thousands of employees, numerous business units. To imply that GE would have to be certified in it's totality or none whatsoever is nonsensical.

Obviously a certificate should clearly identify the organization and the scope of certification, but most "users" of the certificates are uneducated to scrutinize the certificates they rely on. If you find a certificate that is misleading, the appropriate parties should be contacted, with correction and corrective action expected.

[Paul Simpson]

Originally Posted by Sidney Vianna

I will respectfully disagree. The justifiable exclusion of processes towards claiming compliance with ISO 9001 has nothing to do with the organizational boundaries going for certification.

Who said anything about exclusion of processes? I am just saying that drawing artificial boundaries around the "easy" bits is a farce and the definition of "organization" in 9000.2005 allows it - more particularly the " .... or part thereof."

Originally Posted by Sidney Vianna

Imagine a huge organization such as GE, with hundreds of plants, hundreds of thousands of employees, numerous business units. To imply that GE would have to be certified in it's totality or none whatsoever is nonsensical.

I'll let the nonsensical go! In principle why shouldn't an organization with the resources of GE wait until it has implemented ISO across all its business processes before it claims compliance "to ISO 9001" - surely that is the commitment of the organization's leaders?

This is an extreme example and within large companies there are often smaller incorporated bodies that can separately achieve certification.

Originally Posted by Sidney Vianna

Obviously a certificate should clearly identify the organization and the scope of certification, but most "users" of the certificates are uneducated to scrutinize the certificates they rely on. If you find a certificate that is misleading, the appropriate parties should be contacted, with correction and corrective action expected.

There's the rub. This industry is not very good at policing itself. Any organization can innocently or deliberately mislead its customers and the customer is unlikely to recognize the fact or know they have course to complain.