Benefits of Management Systems ISO 19011
When you are not familiar with ISOs, it is common to think they are only regulations or norms you have to follow in order to continue operating. However, although some of them are mandatory for a company to operate, it is mostly because it—and you—need to meet certain standards and requirements to guarantee, as an example, high-quality products or services. Therefore, we suggest you see them as what they are: standards that actually bring benefits.
If you do it otherwise, you will end up struggling in not only their implementation but also the continuous improvement of every management system in your company. After all, standards are focused on departments and systems of a company, and depending on the one you are working in or dedicating time, you will need a different ISO standard. This takes us to one in particular: ISO 19011.
If you are not familiar with it, this standard is aiming to provide guidelines to carry out audits and for companies to understand the principles of auditing. Managing an audit program and handling all the elements involved with it—including the auditors or people in charge of conducting them—is a lot of work and most people don’t have a clear idea of how to even plan them. Well, since audits are to determine the degree of conformance of a company with the standards it implements, you can have an idea about how much time only one can take.
And if you can’t, here is an example: Imagine you are implementing ISO 9001, which is a standard to create, establish, and improve your quality management system. An audit will determine if you meet all the requirements of the standard and get you certified for it. Or if you violate any law or regulation that is mandatory for your business to continue operating.
There are other situations where you can hear or read about them, but at this moment, we are referring to them with their main function: conformance and finding non-conformities. Now, how can you find non-conformities, determine the degree of conformance, or just evaluate a company overall? You will understand and learn this by following and implementing ISO 19011 where you will find every guideline and instruction to plan and conduct an audit properly.
That being said, why should you invest time in this standard? For us, all standards provide benefits more than anything else—some even have pros only and no cons at all even when it is hard to believe. Therefore, if you want a tour through the benefits of this ISO, let’s also talk about what it accomplishes.
What does ISO 19011 help you to accomplish?
Not all companies have guidance to carry out a process properly. Therefore, consider yourself lucky if your ISO needs are aiming directly to audits or auditing management systems. This takes us to the main benefit: you will have a step-by-step document.
ISOs don’t usually include guidelines or steps you need to follow, but this is also because not all of them focus on the same. Most standards establish requirements and parameters instead of guiding them to follow and meet them. So, although the creation of ISO 19011 was with this purpose, you can consider the guidelines as the major benefit in all this.
Now, moving onto other ones that are as important and relevant as this, there’s one we appreciate the most: defining program objectives. Believe it or not, one of the hardest parts of audits is having to plan them more than conducting one. You have to define and set the goals of the audit before going to the next phase, and this can be harder since they change or vary depending on the company.
And if the audit consists of an internal or external one. In the case of internal audits, you need to study and assess your company for a long time and make sure you are aiming in the right direction. Otherwise, the audit will be useless and you won’t find nor determine what is relevant in the company, and this obviously involves the non-conformities.
To define the objectives, you need to understand the goals of the company overall and give every person in it a role and responsibility. You can’t handle the audit alone or at least, not if it consists of an entire program. Companies that implement this ISO due to the need of auditing their own management systems usually assign someone to do it alone—depending on the relevance of the audit, or how important is to maintain the privacy.
By far, these are the best benefits—according to us—, but if you want a list with most or a few of them, here we provide you with one:
- Makes the process of assessing results and trends easier.
- You can determine the criteria and specific checklists.
- Follow the right order and steps of the audit.
- Guarantee the company or client confidentiality and information security.
- Customize the audit according to the company needs—including yours if applies.
- Better communication among the people and auditors involved.
- Planning and conducting it is faster and simpler.
To start enjoying and bringing these benefits to your company, make sure to implement ISO 19011 soon enough.
At ISO Pros, we can help you with this task and provide you with the certification once you have met every requirement and fulfilled all the steps for the final results. We will make sure to provide extra guidelines in case you don’t understand the document or standard completely.
Or we can always help you to understand it from the very start to the end. Do you have questions or doubts? Make sure to contact us without hesitation nor while feeling compromised. We will answer and clear all of them without second interests or goals.