Delivering a quality product or service to customers is core to any successful organization’s purpose. But who defines what that word ‘quality’ means?
Two companies in the same field might have markedly different standards for their product, materials, processes, or people. How can customers make an informed choice about which one actually represents a quality product? This is where the work of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) comes in.
Who is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)?
In the wake of World War II, the newly assembled United Nations joined with existing standards experts to form the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This non-governmental international body started with weights and measures, but quickly became the world leader in developing standards for industrial, proprietary and commercial matters.
The documents they produce provide requirements and specifications that can be consistently applied to ensure materials, products, systems and services are fit for purpose, no matter where they are found.
ISO also oversees certification for many areas of industry, from production to social responsibility, thereby also raising the importance of risk management. They provide benchmarks that ensure a level playing field, certifying that management systems, manufacturing processes, services, designs, or documentation have all the requirements for quality assurance.
Business risk is a process problem.
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The foundations of ISO
While there are literally thousands of ISO standards, they all reflect the same core principles:
- Customer focus
- Leadership
- Engagement of people
- Process approach
- Improvement
- Evidence-based decision making
- Relationship management
While these tenets don’t change, they are the foundation of standards that are constantly under review to ensure that they are the best they can be, in a very deliberate reflection of the continuous improvement approach.
For organizations seeking accreditation to an ISO standard, there are key requirements they need to meet, which requires a concerted effort to standardize and support excellent processes.
That can’t happen by accident, and the best approach is to engage a process management platform that supports an ISO quality approach.
Achieving ISO quality with Nintex Process Manager
Nintex Process Manager provides world-leading business process mapping and management with a powerful and easy to use platform that compliments the pursuit of ISO standards.
By engaging teams and encouraging continuous improvement, it supports the pursuit of quality and provides a foundation for ISO accreditation.
Customer focus
Process excellence drives greater customer satisfaction. By providing a tool to ensure processes are easy to find, easy to use and easy to improve, Nintex Process Manager supports a customer-centric improvement initiative that delivers better results.
Leadership
A unified purpose and clear vision for quality are essential for effective business process management. With transparent governance structures and process champions at every level of the organization, Nintex Process Manager ensures ownership of an improvement culture from the top down.
Engagement of people
Engaging the people who know your processes best is the only way to fully understand them and leverage the wealth of knowledge in your business teams. Nintex Process Manager is simple to use and encourages active feedback and improvement conversations, with personalized dashboards to ensure the right people pay attention to the right things.
Process approach
Static procedure manuals and complex Visio diagrams don’t engage teams and can’t evolve at the speed your business does. By providing a central source of truth that’s always up to date, Nintex Process Manager allows your teams to have confidence in the processes they’re using, and gives easy access to them.
Improvement
Whether it’s through Kaizen continuous improvement, a Six Sigma approach or Lean process management, processes can’t remain static in an ever-changing business environment. Nintex Process Manager empowers process experts and owners to make changes that can instantly be in front of the teams that need them, and tracks both the change logs and the conversations that inspired them.
Evidence-based decision making
Change for change’s sake does not improve customer outcomes. Continuous improvement is data-driven, and Nintex Process Manager supports good decision making through lean tagging, version comparison and clear reporting of costs and timeframes.
Relationship management
Collaboration between teams, and with customers and stakeholders is an essential element of ongoing improvement. By assigning key stakeholders and communicating change through dashboard alerts, Nintex Process Manager ensures the right people are kept in the loop as your business processes grow. The incident and improvement add-on expands this capacity to allow customers’ voices to be heard with full accountability and audit history for every ticket created.
While the various schools of business process management use different techniques, terminology, and even notations to focus continuous improvement towards ISO ideals, they all share the need for a powerful but accessible business process management platform.
Nintex Process Manager provides the tools teams need to capture, manage and improve business processes, thereby helping organizations to manage risk and create an environment to support the pursuit of ISO standards in any industry.
Hundreds of businesses around the world trust Nintex Process Manager to empower their process improvement initiatives and ISO compliance efforts.
Global IT services company, Agilyx, deploys worldwide ISO certifications with minimal disruption.
In order to manage the complexity frequently associated with integrating compliance systems into day-to-day operations, Agilyx moved their critical information security management system using Nintex Process Manager’s risk and compliance add-on.
Contact us today to find out how Nintex Process Manager can complement these programs:
- LEAN and BPM
- Kaizen and BPM
- Six Sigma and BPM
- Re-engineering and BPM
- Total Quality Management (TQM) and BPM
- Theory of Constraints and BPM
- Capability Maturity Model (CMMI) and BPM
Manage risk, establish total visibility, gain control, drive operational efficiencies, and identify automation opportunities. Plan, map, and manage your enterprise-wide business processes with Nintex Process Manager.
