How much does it cost to get ISO 9001 certification?

Hà Đỗ
4 min readAug 16, 2021

Chung nhan ISO 9001 costs will differ from company to company. Every company is different; for instance, some include the design and development process and some don’t, and the amount of effort needed to implement the necessary processes to meet the requirements (and the costs associated with this) will vary. Likewise, the cost of having the certification auditors come in will be different depending on the complexity of your processes and the number of employees involved. Some of the main categories of cost that you will need to consider include learning about ISO 9001, external help, cost of employee time, certification costs, and, finally, the costs to maintain your QMS.

Hình ảnh: Giấy chứng nhận iso 9001

Hình ảnh: Mẫu giấy chứng nhận ISO 9001:2015 tiếng Việt

Since one of the biggest costs could be the cost of certification, it is best to contact several certification bodies to get a quote on how much they will charge. The certification body can also help you to identify what requirements are not yet met, the gaps; you can then determine the cost to close these gaps by changing or implementing processes.

Steps for a company to get ISO 9001 certified

For the company QMS to be certified, you need to first finish the implementation. After finishing all your documentation and implementing your processes, your organization also needs to perform these steps to ensure a successful certification:

Internal audit — The internal audit is in place for you to check your QMS processes. The goal is to ensure that records are in place to confirm compliance of the processes and to find problems and weaknesses that would otherwise stay hidden.

Management review — A formal review by your management to evaluate the relevant facts about the management system processes in order to make appropriate decisions and assign resources.

Corrective actions — Following the internal audit and management review, you need to correct the root cause of any identified problems and document how they were resolved.

The company certification process is divided into two stages:

Stage One (documentation review) — The auditors from your chosen certification body will check to ensure your documentation meets the requirements of ISO 9001.

Stage Two (main audit) — Here, the certification body auditors will check whether your actual activities are compliant with both ISO 9001 and your own documentation by reviewing documents, records, and company practices.

How do I get ISO 9001 certified?

For an individual to become ISO certified, you need to take the appropriate ISO 9001 training, and pass any applicable ISO certification exams that accompany it.

BUSINESS IMPACT

Is ISO 9001 a legal requirement?

Although ISO 9001 certification is a requirement of many customer contracts, it is not a legal requirement to implement the ISO 9001 standard. In fact, there are many other standards for implementing a Quality Management System. Many of these other standards are based on the ISO 9001 2015 standards (such as AS9100 and IATF 16949), while others have complementary but separate requirements (such as the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award in North America).

Is ISO 9001 worth it?

The benefits of ISO 9001 cannot be overstated; companies large and small have used this standard to great effect, securing cost savings and additional revenue. Here are just a few of these benefits:

Improve your image and credibility — When customers see that you are certified by a recognized certification body, they will understand that you have implemented a system that is focused on meeting customer requirements and improvement. This improves their trust that you will deliver what you have promised, and it will get you new clients.

Improve customer satisfaction — One of the key principles of the ISO 9001 QMS is the focus on improving customer satisfaction by identifying and meeting customer requirements and needs. By improving satisfaction, you improve repeat customer business.

Fully integrated processes — By using the process approach of ISO 9001, you not only look at the individual processes in your organization, but also at the interactions of those processes. By doing this, you can more easily find areas for improvement and resource savings within your organization.

Use evidence-based decision making — Ensuring that you are making decisions based on good evidence is a key to the success of an ISO 9001 QMS. By ensuring that your decisions are based on good evidence, you can better target resources to the best effect to correct problems and improve your organizational efficiency and effectiveness.

Create a culture of continual improvement — With continual improvement as the main output of the QMS, you can attain ever-increasing gains in savings of time, money, and other resources. By making this the culture of your company, you can focus your workforce on improving the processes they are directly responsible for.

Engage your people — Who better than the people working within a process to help find the best solutions for improving that process? By focusing your workforce on not only managing, but also improving the processes, they will be more engaged in the outcome of the organization.

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