The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD) conducted three sets of “ISO Awareness Seminar: Understanding the Requirements of ISO 9001:2015,” which benefited 71 regular and Institutional Contract of Service (ICOS) employees. The three batches of seminars were conducted on September 30, October 7, and October 28, 2022, at the PCAARRD headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna.
The activity provided basic understanding of the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 Standards and created awareness on PCAARRD’s Quality Management System (QMS), including the use of the PCAARRD ISO (PISO) Online System to the Council’s newly hired staff and current members of the Quality Management System Process (QMSP) Team who have not yet attended any seminar about ISO. In addition, other participants were completers of previous ISO Awareness Seminars conducted who are interested to be re-oriented about the ISO 9001:2015 Standards.
The requirements of the ISO 9001:2015 standard was discussed by Mr. Leandro Lorenzo G. Bautista, PCAARRD’s Continual Improvement Program consultant. This was followed by an overview of PCAARRD’s QMS and a walk-through of the PISO Online System, which were presented respectively, by Ms. Sharon P. Batoon (Senior Science Research Specialist and QMSP Team Leader) and Ms. Azel Glory C. Banganan (Science Research Specialist II and Documented Information Control Team Leader).
Dr. Lilian G. Bondoc, Director of Policy Coordination and Monitoring Division (PCMD), and Quality Management Representative provided closed the first two batches of trainings by highlighting the relevance of PCAARRD’s Quality Policy (QP), “PCAARRD commits to satisfy the needs and expectations of its interested parties by delivering quality science and technology (S&T) products and services in the agriculture, aquatic, and natural resources (AANR) sector.” Dr. Bondoc emphasized the need for PCAARRD employees to know and understand the quality policy by heart to enable them to provide genuine service and thanked the participants for their commitment to participate in the seminar.
Dr. Melvin B. Carlos, Deputy Executive Director for Administrative, Resource Management and Support Services (ARMSS), closed the third batch seminar and reminded the participants of relevance of maintaining a quality management system. He encouraged participants to apply their learnings in supporting the Council’s QMS implementation. Furthermore, he acknowledged Mr. Bautista’s untiring support to PCAARRD’s continuous improvement initiatives and commended the PCMD’s ISO Training Team for the successful conduct of the 2022 awareness seminars.
The participants across batches expressed their satisfaction with the seminar, which was very informative, relevant, and worth attending.