QUALITY STANDARDS

ISO 9000

ISO 9000 is a family of standards for quality management systems. ISO 9000 is maintained by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization and is administered by accreditation and certification bodies. Some of the requirements in ISO 9001 (which is one of the standards in the ISO 9000 family) include

• keeping adequate records;
• facilitating continual improvement
• checking output for defects, with appropriate and corrective action where necessary;
• regularly reviewing individual processes and the quality system itself for effectiveness; and
• a set of procedures that cover all key processes in the business;
• monitoring processes to ensure they are effective;

Quality System under ISO 9000

A company or organization that has been independently audited and certified to be in conformance with ISO 9001 may publicly state that it is "ISO 9001 certified" or "ISO 9001 registered." Certification to an ISO 9000 standard does not guarantee the compliance (and therefore the quality) of end products and services; rather, it certifies that consistent business processes are being applied. Indeed, some companies enter the ISO 9001 certification as a marketing tool.

Although the standards originated in manufacturing, they are now employed across a wide range of other types of organizations. A "product", in ISO vocabulary, can mean a physical object, or services, or software. In fact, according to ISO in 2004, "service sectors now account by far for the highest number of ISO 9001:2000 certificates - about 31% of the total."

The system standards describe what requirements need to be met, not how they are to be met. This allows for diverse organizations to apply the same standards in a manner that reflects the reality of their business structure. In essence, allowing each organization to meet the system requirements by implementing the standards in a manner that suits its own unique needs. Increasingly, certification to an internationally recognized quality management standard like one from the ISO 9000 series is becoming an important part of distinguishing an organization from its competition.

The ability to be audited by an independent, third party organization is the foundation of its acceptance worldwide. Companies may now objectively determine an organizations capacity to supply goods or services that meet the specified requirements of the customer. This can attract more business as customers, both new and old; can have increased confidence in your organization's ability to meet their expectations.

Often, just having an ISO 9000 certification will automatically qualify an organization as a potential supplier to companies that demand strict conformance to specified requirements. These standards have now become accepted around the world as the benchmark for all quality management systems.

ISO 14000

The ISO 14000 environmental management standards exist to help organizations minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment (cause adverse changes to air, water, or land) and comply with applicable laws and regulations.

ISO 14001 is the international specification for an environmental management system (EMS). It specifies requirements for establishing an environmental policy, determining environmental aspects and impacts of products/activities/services, planning environmental objectives and measurable targets, implementation and operation of programs to meet objectives and targets, checking and corrective action, and management review.

ISO 14000 is similar to ISO 9000 quality management in that both pertain to the process (the comprehensive outcome of how a product is produced) rather than to the product itself. The overall idea is to establish an organized approach to systematically reduce the impact of the environmental aspects which an organization can control. Effective tools for the analysis of environmental aspects of an organization and for the generation of options for improvement are provided by the concept of Cleaner Production.

As with ISO 9000, certification is performed by third-party organizations rather than being awarded by ISO directly. The ISO 19011 audit standard applies when auditing for both 9000 and 14000 compliance at once.

ISO certification process

• ISO does not itself certify organizations. Many countries have formed accreditation bodies to authorize certification bodies, which audit organizations applying for ISO 9001 compliance certification.
• Although commonly referred to as ISO 9000:2000 certifications, the actual standard to which an organization's quality management can be certified is ISO 9001:2000.
• Both the accreditation bodies and the certification bodies charge fees for their services.
• The various accreditation bodies have mutual agreements with each other to ensure that certificates issued by one of the Accredited Certification Bodies (CB) are accepted world-wide.
• The applying organization is assessed based on an extensive sample of its sites, functions, products, services and processes; a list of problems ("action requests" or "non-compliances") is made known to the management.
• If there are no major problems on this list, the certification body will issue an ISO 9001 certificate for each geographical site it has visited, once it receives a satisfactory improvement plan from the management showing how any problems will be resolved.
• An ISO certificate is not a once-and-for-all award, but must be renewed at regular intervals recommended by the certification body, usually around three years. In contrast to the Capability Maturity Model there are no grades of competence within ISO 9001.