All organizations are required to ensure that their products and services meet the requirements before they deliver them to the customers. This clause aims to ensure there is clear communication between an organization and its customer in relation to the requirements of products and services.

 As stated in the ISO 9001:2015 standard, an organization will meet the communication requirements for products and services by:

Emphasizing the importance of customer communication (8.2.1)

An organization shall have a good communication arrangement with its customers. The importance of customer communication for an organization is to help the organization understand the needs and expectations of its customers. An important question to ask in this case is, “what do customers expect and how can we fulfill their expectations?”

What the organization shall consider in their communication with the customer:

• Information relating to products & services. (Service agreements, product data sheets, websites, price lists, product samples etc.)
• How inquiries/contracts/orders are handled. How can customers inquire about a product? How can a customer go about placing an order/initiating a contract?
• How responses to customer feedback/complaints are processed. Establish a process for receiving and recording complaints, then investigating the cause, and taking appropriate corrective action when necessary.
• Contingency actions. How would the organization react to unexpected events such as lost shipments, natural disaster, product failure, etc.

Determining the requirements for products and services (8.2.2)

An organization needs to determine the statutory, regulatory, organizational, and customer requirements for products and services it provides. Additionally, an organization must have plans to meet the above requirements. Some areas of consideration will be to evaluate the resources, capability, and capacity the organization has in order to meet those requirements.

 Some means of determining product requirements:

• Technical data
• Specification and standards
• Drawings

 The objective of this clause is to ensure that all requirements are clear, documented, and available to the appropriate parties that contribute to the product/service realization process.

Reviewing the requirements for products and services (8.2.3)

The organization is required to accept an order or contract only after a review of the requirements from section 8.2.2 is completed and it is determined that the organization has the capability to meet the defined requirements.

The organization should review the delivery and post-delivery scenarios and records of these reviews shall be available.

Some examples of items that can be part of the review:

• Product acceptance criteria
• Delivery date 
• Price
• Quantity 
• Inspection/test results, certifications requirements
• Post-delivery expectations

Amending relevant documentation after changes on requirements for products and services (8.2.4)

 If there is a change to the products/services requirements, the relevant documentation needs to be amended. The organization must also ensure that the relevant people are aware of the changes in the requirements for the products and services. In essence, where there is a change in requirements – relevant documentation is to be amended and relevant persons are to be informed.

 Therefore, an organization must have arrangements in place to amend documentation and ways to communicate changing requirements. Some of the ways that an organization can communicate the changes are updating contracts/orders, sending notification, creating change orders, meetings with relevant interested parties (inside or outside the organization, which may be affected by the changes).

 When properly implemented, the organization will have developed a simple but effective method of communication in ensuring that all requirements are clear, documented, and distributed to the appropriate parties within the organization that affect product and service