How do ISO 9001 Quality Systems evolve with Industry 4.0?

Let's talk today about Quality Management Systems to ISO 9001 Standards to understand the past, present and future of the most widespread standard in the world, which counts about 150,000 certified companies in Italy alone.

Why talk about Quality Systems to ISO 9001 standards today? In a world characterised by unstoppable globalisation and in an economy influenced by a pandemic situation that does not seem to want to let go, how can an international standard born in the 1990s help the entrepreneur?

To find out more, we interviewed an expert in the field.

1. What has changed in all these years in the world of certification?

If we talk about the change in the ISO 9001 standard, I can say without fear of contradiction that in more than 25 years the standard has changed profoundly. From a document born with the objective of setting shared standards to make companies from different nations compete in the newly-born European Common Market, based on product quality, over the years the standard has turned into a powerful managerial tool, aimed at helping companies increasingly compete on an international scale through effective and efficient processes.

This important evolution still clashes with a methodological approach that has failed to evolve and has remained, in fact, in the 1990s. The most widely used technology is stuck in simple office tools, standard requirements are developed through a documentary approach. It's mind-numbing stuff, and in fact few entrepreneurs today have been enabled to understand the importance of management systems and therefore experience them as a necessary tax without reaping any real benefits.

2. In your experience, what is the natural evolution of the role of quality manager in light of the evolution brought about by the Industry 4.0 plan and in anticipation with the NRP?

I'll get straight to the point. ISO 9001, like all management tools, today calls for the creation of a Management System capable of producing useful information to help management make strategic decisions in order to reduce risks and seize opportunities.

Having information today means having effective digital tools and the ability to bring change into the company so that these solutions can be seamlessly integrated into everyday life.

From my point of view, the natural consequence of these requirements is that the role of the 'Quality Manager' evolves from product technician to process innovator: managerialism is to information as innovation is to digitalisation.

An important leap that requires the Quality Manager, and the consultant offering services to companies, to equip themselves with new skills that today are rarely part of their cultural background and toolbox.

The now-defunct Industry 4.0 national plan and the new PNRR highlight the direction in which a company that wants to be competitive must go!

3. ISO 9001 standards were born in the 1990s, does it still make sense in 2022, after almost 30 years, to talk about Quality Systems?

If we think about it, the topic of digital transformation was also born in the 1990s, yet in 2022 it is still at the top of the agenda in the NRP. What has happened over the years? We have missed the train, that is what has happened. The computerisation that led to the introduction of PCs in companies in the 1990s failed to bring the change we are being asked to make today. The exact same applies to ISO Management Systems. In recent years they have spread to the point of becoming a commodity, losing much of the original meaning for which they were introduced.

Today more than ever, in the current situation of great uncertainty and change, Management Systems, if used as organisational tools, can offer the solution to the challenges we are facing.

4. What is the recipe you would suggest to industry experts?

To help companies achieve the change necessary for growth, and in many cases for survival, there is a need for a new business model, capable of merging advanced digital tools and human skills.

There is no shortage of technologies, there is a lack of resources capable of putting them on the ground, of integrating them into the 'day to day', to transform processes and turn them into business tools.

Management Systems represent a pass-par-tout key to reach all the organisation's business processes and professionals have the opportunity to be the pivot of change.

To do this, however, there is a need for professionals willing to put themselves on the line to acquire the new skills we mentioned earlier.

5. How do you see the future of Management Systems?

I don't have a crystal ball, but on the basis of my experience I believe that those who adopt ISO 9001 certified Management Systems will have a twofold option in front of them that will become increasingly differentiating: spend as little money as possible to maintain a certification, or invest in tools to make an organisation, to compete, to bring about the necessary change with respect to the context in which you operate, in a word, to make Quality.

I would like to think that one day this differentiation could be formally recognised, given that there are already many factors that would allow a company to understand what the 'quality level' of the supplier it is dealing with is. One example is quickly given: many large companies now no longer trust the certificate that the supplier shows and conduct Part II audits.

Quality Management Systems are powerful tools that can contribute significantly to the success of an organisation; to think that they are no longer needed is tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.