Scope Statement

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Question

My company is late to transition from ISO 9001: 2008 to 2015 and we are just starting. I am already stumped. I need to answer “What is our your scope statement?  This should succinctly summarize your products and/or services. A single sentence is all that is required, as this will be shown your ISO 9001:2015 certificate.”

We are a commercial printing and bindery. Is the scope from receipt of order through final acceptance by the customer? I don’t know what this means.

Answer

Scope is a difficult concept for many. Accuracy is important; however, you encounter two types of scope that may confuse you.  The first is the Scope of the Standard.  It’s in the “introduction,” in clause 01.  It’s informational and is not auditable.  The second is clause 4.3.  Scope is the outcome of the work in 4.1 & 4.2.  There can be a number of ways to address scope: your range of products and services (XYZ company provides design and printing services); different sites (XYZ designs art work in its Chicago studio and our Cleveland plant does commercial printing) – each of these sites addresses their activities; outsourced services (XYZ company coordinates outsourced design and printing services for our customers).  You can slice and dice scope for a single plant (having others in the company), specific sections (within XYZ company, implantable medical devices are manufactured).

In your case, “XYZ provides commercial printing and bindery” is sufficient.

The scope must be documented and will be verified by your third party certification body.

Thanks for your question.

George Hummel

For more information on this topic, please visit ASQ’s website.

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