A lot of my customers come to me in response to a tender which has a requirement to be either certified to an ISO standard or have some form of ISO system in place. For some companies this the kick up the bum that they have been waiting for to put a QHSE system in place.
In reality, unless you have at least 3 months until your tender is due, you will not be able to implement a system and get it audited in time. I have helped some people get their system certified faster but they basically just said "we want it, we want you full time for 2 months and we want to start yesterday" This is a very costly way of doing things but sometimes if it is the difference between getting the job and not getting it, it is worth it.
If you don't have the time or the funds there are still a couple of ways of showing in a tender document that you are at least in the process of implementing an ISO system.
a. Contact a consultant like myself to help you get started with the basics. When this happens I will generally write a letter on our letterhead stating that we have been engaged to assist with implementing whatever system it is, and that we expect certification in however many months.
b. Do the basics yourself. You can generally put together a QHSE policy, a simple manual with the more crucial procedures, some forms (ie. risk assessment and corrective action) and some form of plan together to help get the tender across the line. If successful you can then start budgeting to implement the system properly.
As much as people would like to ignore it, ISO systems are becoming fairly common requirements in most tender documents these days. When it comes to the crunch if you are competing against someone with the same price and same relationship, the person with the better systems is going to win.
If you would like any assistance with your next tender please feel free to contact me.
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