Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) has planned courses to help enhance the scope of Pakistan's exports in the global market.
It has, therefore, organised ISO 9001: 2000 Quality Management System (QMS) training courses and the first of the series of such courses, which began on June 18, concluded at a hotel here on June 22.
PSQCA Director General Abdul Ghaffar Soomro inaugurated the course, while the concluding session was addressed by World Trade Organisation cell of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Incharge Engineer M. A. Jabbar.
PSQCA believes that exports would get a big boost through the QMS certification of industrial/business enterprises. ISO 9000 has become an international standard for quality management requirements in business-to-business dealings, which means that the organisation has to fulfil the customer's quality requirements, while aiming to enhance customer satisfaction and achieving continual improvement of its performance.
PSQCA, which is a national standards body and member of International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and working under the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of Pakistan, has been mandated to assess and test industrial material and finished products to safeguard consumer interests.
Realising the importance of ISO 9000 series the Auditor Training Course (ATC), which concluded on Friday, was attended by 20 persons from various organisations. The course was aimed at providing participants with the knowledge and skills required to perform first, second and third party audits of management systems against ISO 9001 in accordance with ISO 19011.
The course objectives were: To describe the purpose of quality management systems and eight principles of quality management, to explain the purpose, contain and inter-relationship of ISO 9000, ISO 9001 and ISO 9004, to explain the terminology related to ISO 9001 and quality management systems, drawing in ISO 9000 definitions. Further to describe the structure of ISO 9001 and explain the intent and requirements of each clause of ISO 9001 requirements.
The course was also aimed at explaining the role of an auditor to plan, conduct, report and follow up a QMS audit in accordance with ISO 19011, ie, audit process, auditor responsibilities, audit planning, conducting the audit, reporting and following up the audit, and plan, conduct, report and follow up an audit in accordance with ISO 19011 and by interpreting ISO 9001.
ISO 9000: 2000 Lead Auditor Training Course will be beneficial for technical persons and will help equip them with auditing skills as per required national and international standards, to carry out audits at the suppliers persons premises.
Participants, who successfully completed this ISO 9001: 2000 Lead Auditor Course, will be certified for initial certification as International Register for Certified Auditors (IRCA) based in United Kingdom and affiliated with United Kingdom Accreditation Services (UKAS) QMS 2000 auditor.
This will build the capacity of PSQCA to conduct audits and QMS certification through its locally qualified human resources, as at present it is the foreign based companies only such as BVQI, Moody and UKAS who are conducting this kind of audit and awarding QMS certification.