Evaluation of Models to Implement the ISO 9001 Process Approach

Abstract

The ISO 9001 standard is adopted worldwide by organizations from different sectors. The ISO 9001:2015 guidelines for implementing the process approach require not only the identification of the organization processes, but also the description of their interactions as a network system. Flow charts are a common tool adopted in quality management to show the sequence flow of a process. However, they do not show interrelations between different processes. The first aim of this study is to investigate the utilization of some software engineering models to satisfy the process approach requirement in the ISO 9001:2015 standard. The second aim is to show the implementation of the ISO 9001:2015 process approach and the "Plan-Do-Check-Act" (PDCA) cycle to manage academic programs processes as a case study and to present how the proposed models can be utilized to describe the interactions between processes. Finally, the study used a semi-structured interview methodology to evaluate the proposed models based on three criteria: understandability, modifiability and process improvement.