Arcus Compliance celebrates ISO 9001 success
Discover why Arcus Compliance decided to invest in ISO 9001
Arcus Compliance Ltd was founded by CEO Lee Bryan & Director of Research and Development John Walker in 2017 to help vape brands to build compliance strategies as countries around the world began to regulate the vapour industry.
The Wales based business supports its clients to strategically navigate the constantly evolving regulations that face the vape, cannabis/hemp, cosmetics, medical device and adult health industries. Their proprietary software and methodologies have been honed over years of working with some of the largest brands in the world.
We interviewed Regulatory Specialist Keelie Turnbull to find out why they invested in ISO 9001 and what support Brighter Compliance offered. Keelie explained “we wanted to improve our internal operations and place Arcus in a stronger position to support business growth. ISO 9001 is something that I am very passionate about and putting a strong management system in place was always part of our agenda.”
Scope of the project
The initial outlay for this project was for support with developing and implementing an effective QMS to the following scope:
“The provision of regulatory advice, guidance, and action in the vape, including testing of products in accordance with worldwide regulations to ensure compliance with relevant markets.”
The Process
Brighter Compliance’s process walks businesses through everything they need to get started with a fully operational management system:
Step 1- Gap Analysis
Brighter Compliance worked with Arcus Compliance to complete a Gap Analysis to review business operations and understand how their current business processes mapped against the requirements of ISO 9001 and where there were any gaps.
Step 2- Recommendations
Following our initial assessment, we made a series of recommendations to Arcus Compliance.
Keelie explained that the business had many of the processes and procedures already in place, but documents needed to be updated to come in line with the standard’s requirements. This is where the advice from Brighter Compliance really came into play.
Step 3- Pre-certification Support
Arcus Compliance participated in ongoing meetings with ISO consultants Austin and Robin to prepare their management system and ensure they were audit ready. Processes that they didn’t have in place were developed and those that they did have were adapted to ensure they were compliant.
Step 4- Certification
Keelie went on to explain “Once we had fully developed our management system we were then ready to progress onto our Stage 1 assessment with certifying body, Simply Certification. At this initial assessment we received only 2 minors and 3 OFIs. By the time our Stage 2 audit came around we had addressed many of the findings and are now waiting on certificate arriving.”
Step 5 – Ongoing Support
Brighter Compliance is excited to continue to support Arcus Compliance on a consultative basis to ensure that quality measures are implemented throughout the business during this initial period post-certification.
The Outcome
Keelie described the process to becoming certified and the benefits it will bring to the business:
“We started our ISO journey in 2021 and have forged a strong ongoing working relationship with Brighter Compliance to ensure we remain focussed on quality delivery.
Our hope is to progress to offer management system support to vaping, e-liquid and e- cigarette manufacturers.
Having this certification will boost our reputation and enable us to access additional work including the delivery of our own bespoke management system to support this evolving industry.
My favourite part of the entire process was being able to offer additional training and support to all of the team members. We have developed internal competencies through the adoption of Bright HR and started to offer courses to our team to improve skillsets and support our evidence for clause 7 of the standard.
Getting all of our processes and procedures in place to improve operations has been extremely rewarding and we are definitely operating more efficiently now. In addition to developing the management system we implemented a system called confluence to manage all of our tasks and it has worked extremely well with the embedding of ISO 9001.
The support from Brighter Compliance has been second to none. I think Austin is absolutely amazing and we couldn’t have achieved this massive milestone without his support.”
Managing Director Austin Gibbons commented “Working with Keelie and the team at Arcus has been an absolute privilege. Their dedication to properly embedding the recommendations we made has made a substantial difference to their operations and we look forward to developing our working relationship and offering support together across the industry.”
Getting started with Brighter Compliance:
Is your business looking to improve quality management performance with a UKAS certified ISO certification? Contact us today to find out more on 0191 6404201.
