Business Architecture may help to get ISO 9001:2000 certification

The ISO standard is related to the definition and requirements of a quality management system. It helps an organization to operate with increased effectiveness, consistency and customer satisfaction and have the capability to continually improve the management system.

ISO 9001:2000 is based on eight Quality Management Principles which are comprehensive and fundamental rules of belief, for leading and operating an organization, aimed at continually improving performance over the long term, by focusing on customers, while addressing the needs of all stakeholders.

Principle 4 is referring to a “Process Approach”. The standard promotes the adoption of a process approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness of the quality management system. A desired result is achieved more efficiently when activities and related resources are managed as a process.

Product realization is a system of processes by which inputs, such as raw materials or components from suppliers, are transformed through the activities of the organization, such as value added production or assembly operations, into outputs, such as products or components, which meet the needs and requirements of a customer.

Any activity or operation that receives inputs and converts them into outputs can be considered as a process. Almost all activities and operations involved in making a product or providing a service are processes.

When an Enterprise Architecture Committee receives suggestions for strategic changes, they should immediately translate those changes into changes in specific business processes. If the architecture is well-defined, changes in processes will immediately suggest changes in specific applications and databases. There are many definitions of a Business Architecture but they all refer to the definition of processes.

The business architecture is a formal documentation of the lines of business, their support functions and their relationship to each other. After the architecture has been documented, it is systematically analyzed to examine the functions (services) required by business and to align the enterprise technology with those functions.

Companies which have already documented their business architecture (baseline/as-is) may consider to have achieved a great step getting the ISO 9001:2000 certification.