Are you Aware of the Differences in Several ISO Standards?

Modern businesses may need to implement more than one ISO standard within their business set up. In such a case, it is important for the businesses to learn about the similarities and differences of several ISO standards. Go through this article to learn the differences in several ISO standards.

Over the years, ISO certifications have managed to draw the attention of every sort of business, large, mid-level, or small enterprises. Surprisingly, the popularity is rapidly increasing in every year. Well, this is no doubt a good sign. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed each of their standards to support diverse sectors. The standards cover a wide array of areas including quality, environment, and work place health and safety management system.

The requirements of the areas, mentioned above, are very similar to each other. However, there are many areas in which one or more standards are prominent in comparison to other standards. While all the reputed ISO certification services are well aware of the differences among these ISO standards, many entrepreneurs and senior managers are still in dark about the differences. Being an entrepreneur, you must be aware of the basic differences these standards.

In this article, we will help you understand the differences in the ISO standards. First, let’s have a look at a couple of things that are different in terms of quality, occupational health and safety management, and environmental standards:

• ISO 9001 does not look for targets. Its focus is always on the objectives. ISO 14001, on the other, need an organization to meet both objectives and targets.

• Whenever a non-conformance is detected in an internal audit conducted for ISO 9001 standard, the manager, responsible for dealing with the concerned area, should correct the detected issue. ISO 14001 Standard wants corrective action to be taken in the event of identifying a non-conformance, but it does not specify who is responsible for making the correction.

• Most of the ISO standards including ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 insist on continual improvement while only ISO 9001 standard contains an individual section on continual improvement (section 8.5.1)

• Many people believe ISO 9001 and AS 9100 standard to be the same. Well, it is true that the requirements of AS 9100 certification include all the requirements of ISO 9001. The only difference is that, AS 9100 has been designed for aerospace industry while ISO 9001 can be adapted by any business regardless of its industry. Therefore, AS9100 standard adds a couple of requirements, which are not included in the ISO 9001 requirements.

• A manual is required only for ISO 9001 standard. ISO 14001 Environmental Management Standard looks for a description of the main elements relevant to the management system. You can understand that this description is far from a full-fledged manual.

• ISO 9001 requires a detailed approach when it comes to the calibration, assessment, and measurement of the devices. ISO 14001 and the OHSAS 18001 only require an assurance that the used devices are calibrated.

• OHSAS 18001 requires a hierarchy to implement the controls used for managing the detected hazards or risks. ISO 9001 and 14001 Standard never clearly stated how to prioritize the controls for the quality or environmental issues.

• ISO 14001 wants the organizations to find out their environmental impacts. However, the standard does not specify any particular method for this.

• Once a company has correctly identified its environmental impacts, they need to set out their objectives, targets, and programs based on these environmental impacts.

A Final Takeaway

Here, we have discussed only about a couple of popular ISO standards. In this context, it should be noted that there are many other ISO standards, which have been designed for individual industries. For instance, ISO 17025 has been developed for testing and calibration laboratories; ISO 13485 has been developed for medical device and manufacturing industry. These days, most of the companies are preferring ISO certification services for availing ideas on how to achieve the ISO standard their business needs the most.

Whenever an organization is trying to gain any particular ISO certification, it is important for the organization to develop a proper understanding of the standard. Even before hiring the ISO consulting services, a business should garner knowledge about the standard. Often, an organization needs multiple ISO certifications. In such a case, it is important to understand the differences between the standards required for the organization.

We hope this article has helped you understand the subtle differences among popular ISO standards. Consider all the points whenever you are going to implement any one or more of these standards.