How can Australian Risk Services help?

ARS assists organisations to develop and establish Quality Management Systems in line with ISO 9000 requirements and once established we ensure these systems remain relevant to your organisational changes by maintaining your systems in partnership with your people. For assistance please contact Paul Camilleri.

Objectives & General requirements

The objective of establishing quality systems is to establish, document, implement and maintain a quality management system and continually improve its effectiveness in accordance with the requirements of this International Standard.

The organization shall

1. identify the processes needed for the quality management system and their application throughout the organization,
2. determine the sequence and interaction of these processes,
3. determine criteria and methods needed to ensure that both the operation and control of these processes are effective,
4. ensure the availability of resources and information necessary to support the operation and monitoring of these processes,
5. monitor, measure and analyse these processes, and
6. implement actions necessary to achieve planned results and continual improvement of these processes.

General

The quality management system documentation shall include

1. documented statements of a quality policy and quality objectives,
2. a quality manual,
3. documented procedures required by this International Standard,
4. documents needed by the organization to ensure the effective planning, operation and control of its processes, and
5. records required by this International Standard.

The organization shall establish and maintain a quality manual that includes

1. the scope of the quality management system, including details of and justification for any exclusions,
2. the documented procedures established for the quality management system, or reference to them, and
3. a description of the interaction between the processes of the quality management system.

Documents required by the quality management system shall be controlled. Records are a special type of document and shall be controlled according to the requirements.

A documented procedure shall be established to define the controls needed

1. to approve documents for adequacy prior to issue,
2. to review and update as necessary and re-approve documents,
3. to ensure that changes and the current revision status of documents are identified,
4. to ensure that relevant versions of applicable documents are available at points of use,
5. to ensure that documents remain legible and readily identifiable,
6. to ensure that documents of external origin are identified and their distribution controlled, and
7. to prevent the unintended use of obsolete documents, and to apply suitable identification to them if they are retained for any purpose.

Records shall be established and maintained to provide evidence of conformity to requirements and of the effective operation of the quality management system. Records shall remain legible, readily identifiable and retrievable. A documented procedure shall be established to define the controls needed for the identification, storage, protection, retrieval, retention time and disposition of records.