At the recent “More than Human” exhibition at the Barbican, London, a young bartender called Makr Shakr was busy serving cocktails to a queue of eager customers. Nothing particularly startling about that you might think, except for the fact that our bartender was a robot capable of achieving 80 drinks an hour.

Were we witnessing the future of London bars and pubs? If any were expecting the juggling capabilities of Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown (ref. the film Cocktail) they’d have been disappointed; but one could not help marvel at this glimpse of a possible future. After all, the ISO 9001:2015 quality standard does mention the importance of addressing “future needs” (Clause 10.1) as there may be a risk of falling behind the competition.

We may quiver at the thought of not having a friendly chat with a bartender, but then again more of us are using self-service tills than ever before. But how does all this fit into the “Infrastructure”, the title of clause 7.1.3 in ISO 9001:2015? Let’s start by looking at what we mean by “infrastructure”…

For a city, infrastructure could cover transportation networks, streets, sewage systems, water supplies, electricity etc. i.e. all the components that enable a community to function.

A company may be more focused on buildings, offices, vehicles, telephone systems, computer networks and may well take its utilities for granted (until the power or internet line disappears).

The term infrastructure is often used in IT and may refer to hardware, software and communication applications such as email, live chat, discussion forums or management systems.

So quite a vast array of references for a sub-clause that contains just 24 words! it is here that a company may consider having a contingency such as a “business continuity plan”. What would this do? It would ensure there is a capability to function in the event of a failure of any component. Hence, the testing of this plan might prove worthwhile to provide confidence of its effectiveness if ever called upon.

There is an old story of the team who took so long to paint the Forth Bridge that by the time they had finished, the first section needed painting again. This reminds us of the need to consider resilience and sustainability during our planning stages. A bit of risk-based thinking with ISO 9001 wouldn’t go amiss…

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