Understanding Section 8.2

Requirements for products and services

This is an educational article on Section 8.2 of ISO 9001, entitled “Requirements for products and services”.

The purpose of this article is to give you an understanding of what Section 8.2 requires.

This article is directed towards:

• Those responsible for compliance to section 8.2.
• Those responsible for determining requirements of products or services.
• Others interested in understanding section 8.2.

Related videos that may interest you include the following:

• Implementing section 8.2
• And related how to videos, such as:
  • How to record reviews of requirements under ISO 9001

Section 8.2 is entitled “Requirements for products and services” and it focuses largely on determining customer requirements, such as in sales or order entry.

Section 8.2 is divided into four sections:

• “Customer Communications”
• “Determining Requirements”
• “Review of the Requirements”
• “Changes to Requirements”

Section 8.2.1 is the first section, entitled “Customer Communication”.

This section requires that your communications with customers include:

• Providing customers with information relating to products and services
• Handling inquiries, contracts, or orders, including changes
• Obtaining customer feedback, including customer complaints
• Handling or controlling customer property
• Establishing specific requirements for contingency actions, when relevant

These requirements are addressed in more detail in other sections of ISO 9001, so we won’t belabor these points here.

Section 8.2.2 is the second section. It requires you to determine the requirements for the products and services you offer to customers, including:

1. Any applicable statutory or regulatory requirements, and
2. Requirements considered necessary by your organization.

With respect to the second category, this of course will vary widely depending on the products or services you offer.  Depending on the scope of the services you offer, or the characteristics of the products you offer, or the options and configurations that you offer, the requirements that need to be defined will vary. The bottom line is, learn everything that you need to know to ensure that you and the customer are on the same page and that you will meet all of the product and service requirements.

You are also required to, before committing to supply products and services to a customer, review the requirements to ensure you can meet them.

A corollary of the last rules is, before you make any claims about your products or services to a customer, ensure that you can meet those claims.

Your review of requirements should take into consideration:

1. Customer requirements (often in writing in the form of a contract or order)
2. Requirements necessary for the intended use (These requirements may be unstated, but are implicit in the intended use; E.g. an experienced mechanical engineer can be told what a product is supposed to do and he may immediately think of all the unstated mechanical requirements necessary to make it happen. He does not need to bore the customer with the details, but it may affect whether your organization should accept the order, say, if one of those implicit requirements is beyond your capabilities, or too costly. Have someone review the order who has enough knowledge to read between the lines.)

Your review of requirements should take into consideration:

1. Internal requirements (Sometimes an organization has its own way of doing things – make sure your internal requirements square up with what the customer needs, or that you are willing and able to make adjustments.)
2. Statutory and regulatory requirements (There are a lot of laws out there. Be sure that you know what laws are implicated by the customer’s order or contract and that you can meet them.)
3. Modified or conflicting contract or order requirements (Often you will receive a contract or order that differs in material respects to what you discussed earlier – save your self a lot of trouble and discover and resolve those before acceptance.)

If a customer does not provide their requirements in writing, then you must confirm your understanding of the requirements in writing before accepting the order.

You are required to keep records of:

• The results of the review of requirements, and
• Any new requirements for the products or services as a result of the review.

When the requirements for products and services are changed:

• You are required to amend relevant documented information, and
• Notify relevant parties of the changes.

For more information non how to implement this section, watch our implementation videos for section 8.2, and review template library for examples.