An ISO 9001 and 14001 integration: Lessons learned

This paper discusses the experiences of Brewer and Associates, Inc., a Texas training and consulting company in attaining its goal of becoming the first American owned company and the first consulting company in the world to successfully certify to the draft standard of ISO 14001 and the advantage enjoyed through its earlier certification to ISO 9001. A similarity and contrast in the preparation and audit experiences and the lessons learned will be discussed, including common misconceptions which hampered the certification and the manner in which these points of confusion were resolved. An in depth report of the actual ISO 14001 audit experience and the manner in which corrective actions were addressed will conclude the paper.