Posted on 02 November 2020
The HAEU engaged in a project seeking certification to the ISO 9001 quality management standard. The ISO 9001 standard will help the HAEU to continue providing consistent and high-quality services to its users. In view of the certification process, external consultants have concluded a preliminary analysis of the Archives’ service, including a series of interviews with staff members to collect information on the Archives’ main internal processes. A gap analysis was then drawn up in order to optimize processes, avoiding duplication or inefficiencies of work. The aim is to complete, by the end of 2020, the analysis phase, and to have all macro-processes within the HAEU identified and properly described. In the course of 2021, the HAEU intends to seek certification to the ISO 9001 standard.
The project coordinator and archivist Samir Musa emphasized: “We have a responsibility towards our EU institutional partners for a high standard of quality and a good control of our internal processes. We therefore launched this innovative and voluntary quality management project to improve our internal work and to guarantee a high-quality service towards our European partners. We will use ISO 9001 to challenge ourselves and to understand our strengths and weaknesses, what we can improve and what we need to change within the Archives.”
The ISO 9001 quality standard certification is not an immobile and fixed process. It comes under review on a regular basis to guarantee a continuous quality standard over time. The ISO 9001 standard, defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), serves to certify that a specific organization has structured its business on a high-quality standard and clearly documents its internal policies and processes. Macro processes for the Archives include, among others, the management of the reading room, archival deposits, transfers (paper and digital), and the archival vaults. ISO 9001 requires that these processes are properly documented, and that records on these processes are kept and regularly reviewed and updated.