What is QMS? Benefits and instructions for implementing the QMS Quality Management System

The Quality Management System (QMS) is one of the most widely used advanced systems today to enhance the quality of products/services. In this article, let's explore in detail what QMS is, its benefits, and the latest guidelines for deploying the Quality Management System, as presented by KNA CERT.

What is QMS?

"QMS" is an abbreviation for the term "Quality Management System." It is a structured system that documents processes, procedures, and responsibilities to consistently deliver high-quality products or services. QMS is designed to comply with legal regulations, meet, or exceed customer expectations and ensure continuous improvement in quality.

What is QMS?

The objective of the Quality Management System (QMS) is to provide a framework to improve communication, collaboration, and consistency throughout your entire organization, while reducing waste and promoting continuous improvement activities.

Building a Quality Management System can help your organization enhance quality, comply with regulations, reduce operational costs, and improve overall efficiency. QMS can be implemented organization-wide or in specific departments such as quality management, production, product development, and other relevant sections.

What are the Principles of Quality Management System? In general, a standardized Quality Management System should adhere to the following seven principles:

Principle 1: Customer Focus

If your organization aims to deliver products or services that meet customer needs, it's crucial to first identify what those needs are. Customer focus is the foundational principle for improving customer satisfaction.

Principle 2: Leadership

For QMS to operate effectively, top leadership needs to provide resources and continually review the overall system comprehensively. Leadership must have a clear vision and a proper strategy to guide the development of the Quality Management System.

Principle 3: Involvement of People

Individuals working in your organization are the most crucial resource, determining the success or failure of building the Quality Management System. The organization needs to leverage their knowledge and experience during QMS operation. Staff should be assigned roles and responsibilities aligned with their abilities and capacities to ensure the best completion of assigned tasks.

To perfect QMS, the participation of everyone in the business is required.

Principle 4: Process Approach

A process is any activity that takes inputs and produces outputs. Inputs and outputs here are not necessarily just physical materials; some are information or energy sources. Everything you do within the organization has its own process. The inputs for one process will always come from another process, and it is in these interactions that you need to pay particular attention to factors that interact and influence each other.

Principle 5: Improvement

A company will only exist if it becomes better over time, so QMS needs to focus on finding ways to make everything more efficient. That's why organizations need to continually evaluate the results of each stage, identify limitations, and have improvement plans to overcome them and enhance.

Principle 6: Decision Making Based on Evidence

A properly implemented Quality Management System cannot be achieved if we do not know how the process actually works. By making decisions based on facts, your organization can manage and improve QMS better. Evidence here refers to information, data, assessment results, actual context, as well as contributions from personnel within the organization and relevant parties.

Principle 7: Relationship Management

Improving the quality of products or services relies not only on the organization itself but sometimes requires support from relevant suppliers. To achieve this, your organization needs to manage the relationship between the organization and suppliers effectively. Additionally, promoting internal relationships between employees, closely linking departments together, is also one of the principles to strengthen the Quality Management System (QMS).

Benefits of Implementing Quality Management System (QMS)

The importance of the Quality Management System (QMS) is underestimated by some. Many companies believe that QMS is only for large enterprises, but the reality is different. An appropriate Quality Management System can bring benefits to every type and scale of business in any industry or sector.

Using a Quality Management System (QMS) helps increase customer satisfaction with a business's products.

Quality Management System helps organizations promote continuous improvement, establish compliance with regulatory bodies, and ensure that quality is integrated into every aspect of the product or service. As a result, customer trust and loyalty increase, and business operations continue to thrive.

Here are some key benefits of implementing a Quality Management System (QMS):

• Compliance with Quality Standards: QMS helps ensure that your organization complies with current quality standards and regulations.
• Improved Quality: By rationalizing quality processes and promoting continuous improvement, QMS helps your organization enhance the overall quality of the product or service.
• Increased Customer Satisfaction: When customers are satisfied with the quality of your product or service, they are more likely to remain loyal to your organization, and even recommend and promote your product or service to others.
• Improved Operational Efficiency: Quality Management System can help your organization eliminate waste and standardize processes, leading to increased efficiency and productivity.
• Cost Reduction: By adhering to and improving quality, QMS can help your organization reduce costs related to rework, product recalls, and handling customer complaints, as well as mitigate the potential costs of addressing unfortunate consequences that may arise due to poor product/service quality.
• Improved Communication and Collaboration: Quality Management System can enhance communication between departments and among employees throughout the organization, as well as collaboration between your organization and relevant parties.
• Core Elements of QMS:

Although the Quality Management System may vary depending on the type of organization and its field of activity, there are some common core elements for all Quality Management Systems.

The 11 core elements of the Quality Management System (QMS) include:

• Quality Policy and Objectives: Quality policy is a high-level statement from management to provide guidance for QMS. Quality objectives are specific, measurable goals to support the quality policy.
• Quality Manual: The quality manual is a document that provides an overview of the Quality Management System. It includes the quality policy, quality objectives, and other information about QMS.
• Organizational Structure and Responsibilities: The organizational structure provides a framework for the Quality Management System, defining the roles and responsibilities of individuals within the organization in building, operating, and maintaining QMS.
• Data Management: This is the process of collecting, storing, and analyzing data. Data can be used to support quality improvement efforts or make decisions.
• Processes: Processes are activities performed to achieve quality objectives.
• Product/Service Quality: The quality of the product/service refers to the characteristics and properties that the product/service meets compared to the defined quality objectives.
• Customer Satisfaction: This is the degree of liking and satisfaction of customers with the quality of the product/service.
• Corrective and Preventive Action: This is a process to address quality issues and prevent future risks that may impact quality.
• Continuous Improvement: Continuous improvement is the ongoing process of improvement, innovation, and enhancing quality by making gradual changes.
• Quality Tools: Quality tools are instruments used to measure the quality of the product/service, including calibrated and test equipment to ensure accuracy and objectivity.
• Document Control: Document control is the process of creating, reviewing, and approving documents. Documents must be controlled to ensure accuracy, consistency, and the use of the latest version.

Guidelines for Establishing and Implementing Quality Management System (QMS)

Analyzing the current context is crucial when implementing a Quality Management System (QMS).

Step 4: Identify the Requirements of the Quality Management System

The requirements of the Quality Management System are determined based on:

• Current legal requirements
• Customer requirements
• Requirements of stakeholders
• Industry standards
• Quality standards

Step 5: Define the Scope of the Quality Management System

Clearly identify the processes, activities, and departments that will fall under the scope of the QMS.

Step 6: Develop a Plan

Based on the information above, the project team will develop a specific action plan, including detailed content about tasks, responsibilities, timelines, and expected outcomes for the Quality Management System.

Step 7: Develop Processes and Documentation

Develop new processes or improve existing ones based on QMS requirements, including documentation describing the work.

Step 8: Employee Training

Ensure that employees are fully informed about the plan and understand the new work processes.

Step 9: Implementation and Monitoring

Follow the outlined plan, apply new processes, and monitor the compliance of individuals and departments.

Step 10: Evaluation and Improvement

Regularly evaluate the performance of the Quality Management System. Based on the evaluation results, identify the root causes of persistent issues and implement improvement measures to enhance the processes.

Step 11: Certification (if needed)

If your organization needs to verify the effectiveness of the QMS, you can apply for certification of the Quality Management System according to current standards.

ISO 9001 Quality Management System

ISO 9001 is a widely used standard for establishing a standardized Quality Management System (QMS). ISO 9001 guides organizations in establishing principles, policies, processes, and procedures to provide products/services that meet customer needs and enhance customer satisfaction.

The ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard, issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), is internationally recognized and considered the "gold standard" for building QMS worldwide.

KNA CERT provides support services for implementing Quality Management Systems according to International Standards for all organizations and businesses in every industry. If your business needs to establish a QMS, please contact KNA CERT at the Hotline: 0968.038.122 or Email: salesmanager@knacert.com for the earliest assistance!