Why?
Disruption can occur at any time and every business needs to be prepared. ISO 9001 gives businesses a framework to ensure that it is consistently able to meet customer needs.
To ensure quality, the ISO requires businesses to identify risks such as interrupted supply chains, staff sickness and office closures. After identifying these risks, businesses must put processes in place so that consistency is maintained.
What?
ISO 9001 is the international Standard for quality management and implements best practice processes for maintaining quality and satisfaction. Adopted by more than one million organisations across the world, this popular ISO ensures that businesses can meet the needs of their customers as well as work efficiently and productively.
How?
The family-run firm of LS Build implemented a quality management system with Citation ISO Certification in 2017, which has been joined by an occupational health & safety management system and environmental management system.
All of their construction sites closed in March, but this did not mean that the company hit the pause button.
Successful implementation of ISO 9001 meant that the company had already identified potential risks to its procedures and developed processes that would allow key functions to continue. For instance, field staff were already equipped with iPads to allow home working, and when sites closed, office work was able to continue remotely to keep the business moving.
“Running a normal service from the office, along with normal day-to-day office roles, was only possible due to us achieving ISO 9001,” says Steve Smith, director of LS Build. “Achieving ISO 9001 also allowed me to think about all possible scenarios and plan for them.”
With a fully operational office team working from home, the company was also able to use lockdown to prepare themselves for restarting crucial construction projects. The firm built on their existing quality, occupational health & safety and environmental processes and created new ones to ensure their workforces would be prepared for their return to work.
“If it wasn’t for the ISOs, the business would have taken a pause,” Steve Smith stated. “That pause would have affected the business in a way I just couldn’t imagine, delaying proceedings and putting us firmly behind the curve.”
Find out more
To find out how ISO 9001 could help your construction business, get in touch with our Sales Team on 0333 344 3646 or [email protected]
You can also get more in-depth information on the benefits of ISO 9001 from our dedicated webpage or discover how much it costs using our free calculator tool.