Gurley Leadership Solutions
A Customer Just Asked If You Are ISO 9001 Certified.
What certification actually involves, how long it really takes, and whether the 2026 revision changes your plan.
ISO 9001:2015 Support
Durham Region + GTA
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Free 15-Min Call
Talk With Malcolm
★★★★★ Google 5.0
LMI Canada Licensed
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
35+ Years Experience
Ajax Ontario
By Malcolm Gurley, President
Gurley Leadership Solutions Inc., Ajax, Ontario
Lean Six Sigma in service businesses works exactly as it does in manufacturing, because the discipline follows the problem, not the industry. Most organizations do not wake up wanting a quality management system. They get a request for quote with a certification requirement buried in it, or a large customer sends a supplier questionnaire, or a tender closes to anyone without a certificate. Suddenly a standard nobody in the building has read becomes a commercial problem with a deadline attached.
ISO 9001 certification support is the work of getting from that moment to a certificate, without either buying a binder nobody uses or rebuilding the whole company. I have spent 35+ years in senior executive roles at Honeywell, Johnson Controls, and Armstrong Fluid Technology, and I hold a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, which matters here because the standard is fundamentally about controlling processes. This article explains what certification actually involves, what it costs you in time, and one piece of timing news that should shape your decision this year.
The direct answer: ISO 9001 is the international standard for quality management systems. Certification means an independent, accredited certification body audits your organization against the standard and issues a certificate, typically valid for three years with annual surveillance audits. ISO itself does not certify anyone; it publishes the standard while separate accredited bodies perform the audits. Getting there involves building a quality management system that reflects how you actually work, running internal audits and a management review, then passing a two-stage external audit.
Should You Wait for the 2026 Revision?
This is the timing question, and it is worth answering before anything else. ISO has confirmed on its own standards page that a revised edition of ISO 9001 is expected to be published in September 2026, replacing the 2015 version, with certified organizations given a transition period to adapt. Verified on iso.org 22 July 2026.
My view, and you should weigh it against your own situation: waiting is usually the wrong move. Existing certificates remain valid through the transition, the industry consensus is that this revision is evolutionary rather than a rewrite, and certification bodies themselves need time to become accredited to audit against a new edition after it publishes. If a customer needs your certificate this year, waiting for a standard that is not out yet, and cannot be audited against immediately, does not solve your commercial problem.
The more useful position: build the system now against the current version, and treat the revision as a scheduled update rather than a reason to delay. A quality management system built properly is not thrown away by a revision.
What Does the Certification Process Actually Look Like?
- Gap analysis. Compare what you do today against the standard, clause by clause. The output is a list of real gaps, not a generic checklist.
- Define scope and processes. Decide what the system covers, then map how work actually flows. This is where Lean thinking earns its place, because documenting a wasteful process just makes the waste official.
- Build the documentation. Quality policy, objectives, procedures, and records. The test is whether a new employee could follow it, not whether it looks impressive.
- Train your people. Everyone affected needs to understand the parts that touch their work. Auditors interview staff, and rehearsed answers are obvious.
- Run it and generate records. The system needs history before it can be audited. This is the phase most organizations underestimate.
- Internal audit and management review. Both are required by the standard. Find your own problems before an external auditor does.
- Stage 1 audit. The certification body reviews your documentation and judges whether you are ready to proceed.
- Stage 2 audit. The full assessment of whether the system is genuinely implemented and effective, including interviews and observation of work in practice.
- Close any findings, then maintain. Nonconformities get corrected and verified, the certificate is issued, and surveillance audits follow on a regular cycle.
3 yrs
Typical validity of an ISO 9001 certificate, with surveillance audits in between and a recertification audit at the end of the cycle. Certification is a maintained system, not a one-time event, and the ongoing effort is the part most organizations plan for least.
How Long Does It Take, and What Is the Honest Cost?
Timelines vary widely with size, complexity, number of sites, and how much structure already exists. A small organization with orderly processes and committed leadership moves faster than a larger one starting from scratch. Anyone quoting you a firm timeline before looking at your operation is guessing.
The cost that surprises people is not the certification body’s fee. It is internal time: your people writing procedures, running internal audits, sitting in interviews, and maintaining records afterward. Budget for that honestly at the start, because an underfunded effort produces a system that exists on paper and fails at Stage 2 or, worse, passes and then quietly decays.
Will Certification Actually Improve Your Business?
Straight answer: it depends entirely on how you approach it, and it is worth being blunt about this because a great deal of money gets wasted here.
Treated as a compliance exercise, certification produces a certificate and very little else. The documentation describes an idealized process, staff work around it, and the annual audit becomes theatre. That outcome is common and it is expensive.
Treated as an opportunity, the same work forces you to examine every process, and that examination is where the value is. Written down honestly, most processes reveal duplicated approvals, unclear ownership, and steps nobody can justify. Fix those while documenting them and you get a certificate and a better business. That is the approach I take, and it is why the Lean Six Sigma background matters: the standard asks you to control your processes, and Lean asks whether those processes deserve to exist.
What certification does not do
It does not prove your product is good. It attests that you have a system for consistently meeting requirements, which is a different claim. A certified organization can produce a mediocre product very consistently.
It also will not fix an unwilling leadership team, replace competent people, or substitute for training. The standard has real requirements around leadership involvement, and organizations where senior management delegates the whole effort to one quality person tend to struggle both at audit and afterward. That is the same pattern seen in FranklinCovey research on organizational transformation, which attributes most failures to the gap between strategy and culture rather than to technical shortcomings.
How Do We Work With Organizations in Ontario?
Gurley Leadership Solutions is based in Ajax and works with organizations across Whitby, Oshawa, Clarington, Pickering, Barrie, Mississauga, and the wider Durham Region and Greater Toronto Area, in sectors including manufacturing, healthcare, not-for-profit, engineering, and operations. Support covers process documentation, quality management system development, and employee training, combined with Lean Six Sigma implementation so the work improves operations rather than only satisfying an auditor. Note the boundary clearly: the certification audit itself must be performed by an independent accredited certification body, which is a separate organization. For the improvement methodology behind this work, see the guide to Lean Six Sigma implementation, or read more about Malcolm Gurley.
Working Toward ISO 9001 Certification?
Book a free 15 minute phone call with Malcolm Gurley. We will look at where your processes stand today, what the real gaps are, and whether certification is the right answer to the problem you actually have.
Prefer the phone? Call 416.669.7644, Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ISO 9001 certification?
ISO 9001 is the international standard for quality management systems. Certification means an independent, accredited certification body has audited your organization against the standard and issued a certificate, typically valid for three years with surveillance audits in between. ISO publishes the standard but does not certify organizations itself.
Should we wait for the 2026 revision before starting?
Usually not. ISO has confirmed a revised edition is expected in September 2026, with a transition period for certified organizations, and existing certificates remain valid through it. Certification bodies also need time to become accredited to audit against a new edition. If a customer needs your certificate this year, building the system now against the current version is the practical path.
How long does certification take?
It varies widely with the size of the organization, the number of sites, how complex the work is, and how much structure already exists. Anyone quoting a firm timeline before examining your operation is guessing. The larger cost is usually internal time rather than the certification body’s fee.
Does certification prove our product is good?
No. It attests that you have a system for consistently meeting requirements, which is a different claim. A certified organization can produce a mediocre product very consistently. The business value comes from using the documentation work to genuinely examine and improve your processes rather than treating it as a compliance exercise.
Can you issue the certificate?
No, and nobody providing preparation support can. The certification audit must be performed by an independent accredited certification body, which is a separate organization. Support work covers gap analysis, process documentation, quality management system development, and training so that you are ready when the auditors arrive.
About Malcolm Gurley
Malcolm Gurley is the President of Gurley Leadership Solutions Inc. in Ajax, Ontario. He brings 35+ years of senior executive experience with Honeywell, Johnson Controls, and Armstrong Fluid Technology to every engagement. He is licensed through LMI Canada and holds a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and has personally led improvement programs at Honeywell where productivity improved by about one fifth in year one and throughput grew by roughly two thirds over four years. Clients typically report returns of 10:1 or better on their program investment, though every engagement is customized and outcomes vary by organization. Learn more about Malcolm Gurley or see why choose Gurley Leadership.
Gurley Leadership Solutions Inc. delivers leadership development and organizational improvement programs licensed through Leadership Management International; every engagement is customized and outcomes vary by organization. Gurley Leadership Solutions Inc. is not a certification body and does not issue ISO certificates; certification audits are performed by independent accredited certification bodies. Statements about the ISO 9001 standard, its revision schedule, and certification requirements reflect published information as of the verification date and are subject to change; confirm current requirements with ISO and your chosen certification body. Results described from prior engagements, including the Honeywell figures, describe those engagements and are not a guarantee of future results. Return-on-investment figures, including any 10:1 reference, describe typical results from prior engagements and are not a guarantee of future results. This article is general information, not a proposal and not an offer.
Gurley Leadership Solutions
Before You Hire Anyone, Find Out If It Even Applies.
A diagnostic you can run yourself in an afternoon, to tell whether Lean Six Sigma fits your business or whether your problem is something else entirely.
Self-Assessment
Durham Region + GTA
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Free 15-Min Call
Talk With Malcolm
★★★★★ Google 5.0
LMI Canada Licensed
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
35+ Years Experience
Ajax Ontario
By Malcolm Gurley, President
Gurley Leadership Solutions Inc., Ajax, Ontario
The usual version of this question is who can help me. I would start somewhere else, because the more expensive mistake is not hiring the wrong person. It is applying a structured improvement methodology to a problem that was never a process problem in the first place, and spending months confirming it.
So this article is a diagnostic rather than a pitch. You can run it yourself, this week, without hiring anyone. I have spent 35+ years leading this work in engineering and manufacturing organizations and I hold a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and the honest position is that a good practitioner should be able to tell you quickly when the answer is no.
The direct answer: Lean Six Sigma applies to your business when you have a problem that repeats, matters commercially, and has no obvious cause. Those three conditions together are the test. A one-off incident does not need a methodology. A problem whose cause everyone already knows needs a decision, not an analysis. And a problem that costs very little does not justify the effort of a structured project. If all three hold, the methodology fits regardless of whether you make things or deliver services.
The Three-Part Test
Take one specific problem currently costing you money and run it through these three questions honestly.
- Does it repeat? A structured project earns its cost by fixing a pattern, not an incident. If a shipment went out wrong once because someone was covering an unfamiliar desk on a bad day, that is not a pattern. If it goes wrong most weeks, it is.
- Does it cost enough to matter? Put a rough number on it: rework hours, expedited shipping, lost orders, overtime, credits issued. If the annual figure is small, fix it informally and spend your attention elsewhere. This methodology is for problems worth months of effort.
- Is the cause genuinely unknown? This is the one people get wrong. If everyone in the building already knows the cause and it has simply not been addressed, that is not an analysis problem, it is a decision problem. Structured improvement is for causes that are contested, invisible, or spread across departments so nobody sees the whole picture.
Three yeses mean the methodology applies. Two yeses usually mean a lighter approach: map the process, fix the obvious, and move on. One yes generally means look elsewhere for the real issue.
What Are the Signals That It Applies?
- Wildly different outcomes for the same job. The same order type takes two days sometimes and three weeks other times. That variation is the classic signature.
- Nobody can say how long something takes. If asking for the average time to complete a core process produces guesses rather than data, the process is not understood.
- Recurring rework nobody has quantified. Everyone knows quotes get redone; nobody knows how often or what it costs.
- Problems that cross departments. Sales blames operations, operations blames sales, and the problem lives in the handoff between them.
- Firefighting as a normal state. Days spent on urgent exceptions rather than on planned work.
- Growth that broke something. Processes built for a smaller company that quietly stopped scaling.
What Are the Signals That It Does Not?
Problems that look like process problems but are not
Demand, pricing, or product. If sales are down because customers do not want what you sell at the price you sell it, no amount of process improvement addresses that. Making the wrong thing more efficiently is still making the wrong thing.
Capacity and capital. If a machine is at end of life or you are genuinely short of people, the constraint is physical. A structured project may prove that in a few weeks, but you likely already know it.
One difficult individual. Sometimes the recurring problem traces to one person’s conduct or capability. That is a management conversation, not a methodology, and dressing it up as a process project avoids the real task.
Leadership and accountability. If work fails because expectations are unclear, decisions do not get made, or nobody follows through, the tools will produce a good analysis and no lasting change. That is a leadership development problem, which is a different piece of work with different methods.
Does Lean Six Sigma in Service Businesses Depend on Company Size?
Size does not determine whether the methodology applies, but it should change how you apply it.
Large organizations can support formal project structures, dedicated practitioners, and long analysis cycles. A twelve-person business cannot, and should not try. The scaled version is lighter: pick one process, map it with the people who do the work, measure the few things that matter, fix the largest gap, and write down the new standard so it holds. That is the same discipline without the apparatus.
What a smaller organization gains is speed. Decisions that take a quarter in a large company take an afternoon, and the person who owns the process is usually in the room. Used properly, that is an advantage rather than a limitation.
What Should You Do First?
Pick your single most expensive recurring problem and spend two hours on it with the people closest to the work. Write every step on the wall, including the waiting. Put rough numbers on how long each step takes and how long the gaps between steps are. Then look at the ratio.
You will learn one of two things. Either the elapsed time is mostly waiting, in which case you have found real waste and the methodology applies directly. Or the process is tight and the problem lies elsewhere, in which case you have saved yourself a significant expense and can go looking in the right place. Both outcomes are worth the afternoon.
How Do We Work With Organizations in Durham Region?
Gurley Leadership Solutions is based in Ajax and works with organizations across Whitby, Oshawa, Clarington, Pickering, Barrie, Mississauga, and the wider Durham Region and Greater Toronto Area, in sectors including manufacturing, healthcare, not-for-profit, engineering, and operations. A free 15 minute phone call is usually enough to tell whether your problem is a process problem, a leadership problem, or something structural that neither addresses. If it is the third, I will say so. For the full methodology, see the guide to Lean Six Sigma implementation, or read more about Malcolm Gurley.
Not Sure Which Problem You Have?
Book a free 15 minute phone call with Malcolm Gurley, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Describe the problem, and we will work out together whether this methodology is the right answer or whether you need something else.
Prefer the phone? Call 416.669.7644, Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if Lean Six Sigma applies to my business?
Test one specific problem against three conditions. Does it repeat rather than being a one-off. Does it cost enough annually to justify months of effort. Is the cause genuinely unknown rather than something everyone already knows but has not addressed. Three yeses mean the methodology applies, regardless of your industry.
What problems does it not solve?
Demand, pricing, and product-market problems are not process problems. Neither is a genuine capacity or capital constraint, one individual’s conduct or capability, or a failure of leadership and accountability. In that last case the tools will produce a sound analysis and no lasting change, because the constraint is behavioural rather than procedural.
Is our business too small for this?
Size changes how you apply it, not whether it applies. Small organizations should skip the formal apparatus and use the discipline directly: map one process, measure what matters, fix the largest gap, write down the new standard. Smaller businesses also decide faster, which is a real advantage.
What can we do ourselves before hiring anyone?
Take your most expensive recurring problem and spend two hours mapping it on a wall with the people who do the work, including the waiting between steps. Compare working time against total elapsed time. If most of the elapsed time is waiting, you have found real waste. If the process is tight, the problem is elsewhere and you have saved yourself an expense.
How do we get started?
Book a free 15 minute phone call with Malcolm Gurley through the button above, or call 416.669.7644, Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM. There is no cost and no obligation for the initial conversation.
About Malcolm Gurley
Malcolm Gurley is the President of Gurley Leadership Solutions Inc. in Ajax, Ontario. He brings 35+ years of senior executive experience with Honeywell, Johnson Controls, and Armstrong Fluid Technology to every engagement. He is licensed through LMI Canada and holds a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and has personally led improvement programs at Honeywell where productivity improved by about one fifth in year one and throughput grew by roughly two thirds over four years. Clients typically report returns of 10:1 or better on their program investment, though every engagement is customized and outcomes vary by organization. Learn more about Malcolm Gurley or see why choose Gurley Leadership.
Gurley Leadership Solutions Inc. delivers leadership development and organizational improvement programs licensed through Leadership Management International; every engagement is customized and outcomes vary by organization. The diagnostic described in this article is general guidance and not a substitute for assessment of your specific operation. Results described from prior engagements, including the Honeywell figures, describe those engagements and are not a guarantee of future results. Return-on-investment figures, including any 10:1 reference, describe typical results from prior engagements and are not a guarantee of future results. This article is general information, not a proposal and not an offer.
