Source: Freepik
The IT Center at RWTh Aachen University is home to various divisions that are responsible for different subject areas. Among others, the Networks department, which is responsible for the operation and renewal of the centrally managed communication networks of RWTH.
Central tasks include the provision of a reliable and high-performance communications infrastructure to safeguard the university’s research, teaching and administrative operations.
In order to relieve the employees, a quality management system (QMS) was introduced, which was accredited according to ISO 9001 for the first time this year.
You can find out in this blog post what exactly the QMS is used for and how the ISO 9001 certification took place.
The Quality Management System
The decision for a QMS and the subsequent implementation was made in 2019 for several reasons. The decision for a QMS and the subsequent implementation was made in 2019 for several reasons. On the one hand, the task management required an enormous amount of necessary measures and, on the other hand, the complexity of work processes was constantly increasing. This led to a certain pressure to optimize. Since then, the QMS has been continuously developed.
Particular fields of action of the QMS are:
- Training for employees on the topic of quality management,
- motivating and involving employees,
- process development and process control and
- regular exchange of experience with employees.
The Path to Initial Certification
With the implementation of the quality management system and the necessary resources made available, the department decided to start the initial certification.
The initial certification consists of two stages:
Together with the certification body (TÜV Rheinland) and the entire Networks department, the certification process started at the end of March 2023 with the stage 1 audit, which took the whole day.
A detailed explanation of what exactly an audit is and how it works is summarized in a blog post.
In Stage 1, the core quality management team and department management were interviewed by an auditor. A document review and on-site visit took place. At the end of the day, a final meeting was held to discuss further proceedings. The audit results, including the audit conclusions, were also summarized.
On two days at the beginning of May 2023, the stage 2 audit followed with an employee survey and an on-site inspection. The certification process was thus successfully completed with the stage 2 audit.
All in all, the audits lasted three days.
The graphic below shows the complete timeline, from employee training to the certification process.
Source: Own source
Successful Certification
The efforts have paid off: in June 2023 the department received a positive audit report with recommendations for action and a subsequent successful certificate award.
Source: Own illustration
The certificate is valid for three years. Two surveillance audits follow in the years 2024 and 2025. These will be somewhat smaller than the “major” audit, and will review the internal audits, documents and processes.
The re-certification will take place in 2026, during which the complete quality management system of the department will be reviewed.
The networks department is very pleased with this positive result and would like to thank their colleagues for their great work.
Responsible for the content of this article are Jennifer Grampe and Nicole Wießner.
