Welcome to the fourth article in our “Food Safety, QMS and Environment” series. Previously, we explored our journey with ISO 9001, ISO 14001 certifications and our day-to-day work in production operations.
This piece covers the journey of our company’s core—our R&D department. We explore how they harnessed ISO 9001’s guidance to transform their product development process, featuring insights from our R&D Manager, Nils Hellzén.
Implementation of ISO 9001 | A Revolution at R&D
In today’s competitive landscape, we strive to deliver high-quality products efficiently while minimizing risks. ISO 9001 plays a crucial role in achieving these goals. The key benefit of the implementation include:
Customer Satisfaction | By following a systematic design and development procedure, the R&D team ensures that products meet customer requirements and expectations. Gathering customer input, defining product specifications and conducting design reviews contribute to meeting desired quality standards.
Risk Reduction | The product design and development procedure helps identify and mitigate potential risks associated with product design. Safety, regulatory and performance risks are addressed during the development process.
Efficiency Improvement | A well-defined procedure streamlines the design process, reducing time and resources. Identifying inefficiencies and implementing improvements enhance productivity and reduce unnecessary costs.
Continuous Improvement | By implementing ISO 9001, we continually improve processes by collecting feedback, analyzing data on product performance and implementing necessary changes to enhance product quality.
Enhanced Product Quality | Robust adherence to ISO 9001 ensures products are designed and developed according to best practices and industry standards. To deliver high quality products builds trust with customers.
Key Changes and Improvements
The key improvements we experienced due to our implementation of ISO 9001 are many, but to mention some of them:
Design Guidelines | By following ISO 9001’s structured approach, we enhanced consistency and quality across product designs.
NPD Process (New Product Development) | The framework in ISO 9001 has contributed to a more efficient NPD process, reducing development time and enhancing overall quality. Gate meetings, where we sign off our work with internal stakeholders and customers, are a valuable step in this process.
CR Process (Engineering Change Request) and CAD Sketch Revisions | Standardization improved our revision handling, leading to significant improvements.
Onboarding New Employees | New R&D department employees benefit from consistent processes, ensuring accuracy and efficiency.
Quality in Everything We Do
Nils Hellzén, our R&D Manager, says, “The work with implementing and working according to the ISO 9001 principles has been rewarding and challenging. The challenge has been to apply new routines and create new processes in parallel with the daily development work.” The R&D department’s successful implementation of ISO 9001 demonstrates a commitment to quality, risk reduction and continuous improvement. By integrating ISO 9001 principles into their practices, they achieve a higher level of quality, minimize missteps and streamline processes. This success story serves as an inspiration to all of us!
Stay tuned for more articles in our “Food Safety, QMS and Environment” series! Interested in our previous articles? Check them out here: ASEPT News: Your Source for Dispensing Solutions Insights
