Sponsored Content

To be competitive on both a national and a global level, organizations must adopt a forward-thinking approach in developing their management strategies. One of the foundations of a successful strategy is the management system, which may be well-defined and documented, or consist merely of a shared understanding of how processes are implemented. Either way, the management system defines how work is done, the desired results, and the controls imposed to ensure those outcomes.

Management system certification standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), help an organization better control its processes. The standards evaluate the quality of an organization’s processes, not the products or services the processes create. “ISO 9001 doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to make a good product,” says Robert King, former president of the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB), “only that you’ve got a management system in place that aims to make a good product.”

 …