Before and during the course FAQs

The Lean approach can be used to make improvements around an organisation to quality, costs, customer satisfaction and employee morale by:

• Reducing defects and variability
• Eliminating waste and improving efficiency
• Providing products and services that meet or exceed their expectations.
• Enabling employees to contribute to process improvement

You have a number of options to enhance your career prospects with further training.

If you wish to focus on ISO 17025, you can extend your auditing expertise to auditing supplier systems by attending our ISO 17025 Lead Auditor training course. You can also learn more about applying ISO 17025 on our ISO 17025 Implementation training course.

You may like to develop further specialist knowledge around auditing for laboratories. We run courses on:

• Understanding ISO 17025 Requirements for Forensic Laboratories
• Introduction to ISO 15189 for Medical Laboratories
• ISO 15189 Internal Auditor

You can also enhance your skills set, with courses such as:

• Measurement Uncertainty
• Calibration and Control of Measuring Systems

Alternatively, you may like to build on the internal auditor skills you have learned here to work with quality systems across your organisation. We offer a comprehensive range of training courses in internal auditing for quality management, environmental management, health and safety management, information security management, business continuity management, energy management, inspection bodies, medical devices, automotive, food safety, and aviation, space and defence.

Yes, if you wish to gain an executive-level awareness of the requirements of ISO 9001 and quality management systems.

If you are looking for a more in-depth course, you may like to consider our 1-day Introduction to ISO 9001:2015 training course. This is available as a public course at our venues across the UK, offering you the opportunity to meet with peers at other organisations and share knowledge and experiences.

We always ask for feedback from delegates after the course ends, and will act on any suggestions for improvement. We are pleased to say that we receive many positive comments, including praise from delegates who are uncertain what to expect from the subject.

Comments include:

• ‘Our tutor made the course both interesting and relevant. It also created some great opportunities for discussion of our current processes and what improvements we could make to be more likely to achieve accreditation’
• ‘The tutor made the “dry” subject very interactive and applied several useful practical examples when applying this standard’
• ‘The tutor was very engaging and very kind to everyone. He made the content interesting’
• ‘I felt it was going to quite a daunting topic before but the trainer delivered it in a non-complicated manner which helped understanding’
• ‘It was conducted in a manner which was not too fast and allowed you to take in the information. Very open to questions and discussed the reason for the answer as well’

You can read more feedback on our ISO 17025 training.

No. ISO 9001:2008 certification is no longer valid. The transition period to move from ISO 9001:2008 to ISO 9001:2015 ended in September 2018. If your organisation wishes to be compliant with the current standard and be able to advertise itself as compliant, it will need to apply for ISO 9001:2015 certification.

There are many tools and techniques that have proved to be valuable to businesses in applying the Lean Approach. These include:

• Value stream mapping, a visual tool that helps to identify and map the flow of activities required to create and deliver a product or service
• The 5S methodology for organising and cleaning up the workplace to improve efficiency and safety
• The Kanban system for managing work flow by using visual signals to control the flow of materials and information
• Kaizen - a Japanese term for continuous improvement - exploring a philosophy of making small, incremental changes to processes on a regular basis to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

These approaches and tools can be explored on Bywater’s range of Lean training courses.

CQI and IRCA will provide full details of the technical requirements to give you an effective exam experience, including desktop or laptop computer, camera and microphone and internet connection. You will be able to access tools on the portal to test your technology.

As an individual you can become certified through your organisation if it is certified by the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), or directly through the RSS. This is available to delegates that successfully complete either a Six Sigma Green Belt or Six Sigma Black Belt training course. The process will involve submitting a portfolio of evidence demonstrating successful practice. Delegates will also have to attend a half-day assessment centre at RSS in London. For groups this can be arranged on site. Bywater does offer a bespoke training package to guide delegates through this process with one-to-one tutoring from Lean and Six Sigma experts.

A business can be become certified through the RSS 18404 scheme. This will be an assessment of the system the organisation has in place for managing the competence of its key personnel under the standard.  A full description of the process can be found here.

Training providers who wish to certify their training courses with the relevant professional institution must comply with strict requirements.

As an example, the CQI and IRCA first assesses the training provider for suitability as an Approved Training Partner. Auditor courses that are then submitted for certification are thoroughly scrutinised for content, delivery, administration, and the provider’s efforts to continually improve their offering.

The institution audits the provider every two years, and requires that the provider also carries out internal audits on a regular basis.

A stable internet connection is important to keep you online during the course. We recommend that you test your connection as far as you can before the course starts.

If you know you have problems with connectivity, please contact our team who will do their utmost to help. If you are working from home but regularly experience connectivity issues, you may like to consider joining the course from an alternative location.