ISO 9001 that's practical, simple and flexible

Contact us

Home  

Resources & Info

   FAQs
   Newsletter
   Free report
   Links

Solutions

   Our services
  Products
  DIY Pack
  Testimonials

Company

   About us
  Contact us 

DIY Customers

  DIY login 

How long and how much?

FAQ: How long does it take to get certification to the ISO 9001 quality standard? 

The mean time to implement ISO 9001 is 8 months, according to an Australian survey.  But it can take less or more time than this.  Our standard answer: How long is a piece of string? (Sorry, couldn't resist). 

How much does it cost to get ISO 9001?

There are two kinds of costs:

1. the costs of certification itself and
2. the cost associated with getting ready for certification. 

For # 1, you must get quotes from certifiers; they will need you to supply certain information in order to prepare their quote. As a rough indication, for a small company with a single location, expect to budget perhaps around $3 - 4K AUD annually + GST.

The cost of #2 depends on what you choose.  Will you do it yourself? Buy a kit? Use a consultant?  How much experience (if any) do you have and what resources are available.  All these factors affect cost; just asking 'how much?' without considering them will give a nonsense result.  Consider:  can you just ask a travel agent, "How much is a holiday?"  They'd need to know things such as:  Where do you want to go? When? Plane, train, bus or driving?  Car hire?  Any stop-overs, or go direct?  And so on. 

The answer is: it depends. 

Factors that influence time and cost most are usually:

• How committed and 'quality aware' your business owner/senior management are - this is usually the single most important factor
   
• Why you want it
   
• What's the size and complexity of your business?
   
• Where are you now?  Do you already have a structured and disciplined system in place to manage your business now, or not?  Are you close to many requirements, or far away?  How many gaps are there, and how wide? 
   
• Do you have any 'documentation' such as procedures, flowcharts, checklists, forms, policies or job descriptions?  You don't have to 'document everything' but your system must be a documented in some way. Do you anything now?  What?  Is it current?
   
• Do your business activities include 'design' of services/products or not? If so, how complex are your design activities? (this in turn affects what documentation you need)
   
• What resources do you have?  What skills, experience and time available?
   
• When do you want certification by?

To come up with any kind of reasonable assessment of time and cost, a gap analysis is usually required.  This is something a consultant can do, or you could even do it yourself (with a good template and/or experience).

  < -- Back to FAQs

Back to Top

How we can help - What clients say - Contact us

How to do it without
 breaking the bank. 

©  Mapwright. All rights reserved. Internet services by Ozewebhost