Sakarya Quality Association meeting

GE/TSE/1999-05-29

The Year 2000 revisions of the ISO 9000 series

by Prof. Giacomo Elias, President of ISO,
at meeting of Sakarya Quality Association,
29 May 1999, Sakarya, Turkey

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Since their initial publication in 1987, the standards of the ISO 9000 series have
earned a global reputation as the basis for establishing Quality Management Systems
(QMS). Three of the current standards, ISO 9001, ISO 9002 and ISO 9003, have been
used extensively as the basis for independent (third party) quality system
certification. This has resulted in the certification of an estimated 250 000
organizations worldwide, with many more in the process of setting up and
implementing quality management systems.

Since ISO protocols require that all standards be reviewed at least every five years to
determine whether they should be confirmed, revised or withdrawn, the 1994 versions
of the ISO 9000 family are currently being revised by ISOs Technical Committee TC
176, for publication in the fourth quarter of the year 2000.

The current ISO 9000 family, which comprises over 20 standards, will be reduced to
three quality management systems standards only: ISO 9000, Fundamentals and
vocabulary; ISO 9001, Quality management system requirements, and ISO 9004,
Guidance for performance improvement. These will be complemented by a small
number of additional standards, technical reports and/or brochures to address
specific issues.

There will only be one QMS requirement standard ISO 9001, which will replace the
current ISO 9001, ISO 9002 and ISO 9003. ISO 9004 will be the QMS standard which
will drive organizations towards business performance improvement and will form a
consistent pair with ISO 9001 with the same sequence and numbering. The standards
will be compatible with the ISO 14000 environmental management standards, will be

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readily applied to small, medium and large organizations in the public and private
sectors, and equally applicable to users in manufacturing, service and software fields.

The new ISO 9001 is being developed based on a business process model. The revision
reflects the evolving quality management practice but retains the essential elements
of the current 1994 edition. ISO 9004 is based on eight quality management principles
facilitating an evolution towards business excellence and with an emphasis on
customer satisfaction.

The ISO 9000 series is one of ISOs most successful products. ISO is well aware of the
investment made in quality systems based on ISO 9000 and we are taking a proactive
approach to ensure that the transition to the new, enchanced versions will be a
smooth one. Therefore, the development of the ISO 9000 revisions is being carried out
in synergy with a whole series of supporting measures and services.

The measures include a survey by ISO/TC 176 to help define user requirements of the
Year 2000 revisions, verification of the drafts against the design specifications for the
standards, validation to determine if they will meet user needs, and encouragement of
users to submit comments through the ISO national member institutes in order to
improve the documents further.

Added to these measures aimed at product enhancement are communication services,

such as the posting of regular updates on the ISO Web site (www.iso.ch), that aim to
keep ISO 9000 stakeholders in the information loop as the revisions progress.

One of the aspects of quality management which is emphasized in the new ISO 9000
versions is continual improvement. ISO is not merely preaching this as a principle,
but we are also putting it into practice in the development process of our standards.

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