What is in store for us in ISO 9001:2015?

During the last few months, there has been a buzz about the 2015 revision of the, by far, the most popular
ISO 9001 standard. Numerous articles have been published by all and sundry. ISO TC 176 has also officially
published write ups on the nature of the changes and the reasons thereof. There are a couple of published
information by ISO as well in addition to the Committee Draft (CD) and DIS (Draft International Standard)
Probably what has not been discussed or deliberated is the importance of the major changes in the
standard and the perspective of these changes as 3rd party auditors look at them and the impact of these
changes on the organizations who have implemented the standard for varying periods, say since last 1 year
to 26 years. This article attempts to throw some lights on this element of the evolution of the standard.
To enable us understand the changes in the present revision in their right perspective, let us take a deeper
look at how the ISO 9000 series of standards have evolved over the past 27 years and the gigantic role
played by these standards in creating a basic level of discipline and standardization in the organizations to
reach a minimum threshold level in managing their activities and processes. Those who have worked
hands on in implementing the 1987 and 1994 version of the standards would very well remember the
elemental approach to implementing the systems and the compliance approach while auditing. There was
disproportionately higher focus on documentation. Lakhs of organizations must have spent millions of
reams of papers in maintaining thousands of documents.
Looking back now, probably in those days when organizations had information and knowledge stored
mostly in the memories of the people and very little in written and retrievable form, which made many
people indispensable to the organization. Business Continuity was always at risk, barring some exception in
the organizations based in Europe and the US. So far so good. 13 years down the line, the world realized
that the compliance based audits and element based standards were no longer value adding in nature and
the standards needed more teeth for performance improvement in line with the global trend in the fast
changing technology and stiff competitive environment. The service industry was also fast catching up with
the manufacturing sector in systems and discipline and thus arose the need for a common standard.
The 2000 version of the ISO 9001 standard did exactly this to meet this demand in specific and changing
needs of the industry in general. Emphasis on incorporating Process Approach, and focus on
performance and improvement were the hall mark of this standard. Surprisingly enough the 2008
version did not offer much promise against the high expectation of the industry.
Therefore probably the 2015 version is coming out with great promises and seems revolutionary in several
dimensions. Resource Management, Voice of the Customer, Performance and Measurement, Knowledge
Management, Integration of Risk Management and Systematic Approach to problem solving have been
pitched deeply while revising the standard as demanded by the industry
Let us review some of the spectacular changes in the contents of the standard here below and the
backdrop of these changes
Standardization among the standards
It was always a big mystery or an unanswered question as to why every standard, whether 9001, 14001,
27001 etc had different clausal structure and we were wondering why there is no standardization among
the standards.!!!. This has been addressed now by making a clear decision that all future ISO standards

will have a standardized 10 clause structure and standard titles of the clauses. The biggest advantage of
this change is the ease of integration of various management systems.
Risk Management
Every business always carried some element of risk, the extent varying depending on various factors.
However the concept of risk was introduced only in 2008 version of the standard, albeit in an oblique
reference. With more and more awareness among the business managers about risks and need to manage
them effectively has led to integrating a formal approach to risk management in the main elements of the
standard.
Accountability
Many of us would agree that over the years, the direct involvement of the Top Management has been
declining in the QMS and the accountability for the QMS rested mostly on a single person known as
Management Representative. There were some wrong practices also crept in the industry. Better wisdom
has prevailed now and the present standard intends to focus back on the direct role of the Top
Management. This has probably led to elimination of a specific role of Management Representative and
pinning down the accountability with Top Management.
Sustainable development
Economic Growth & sustainable development can not happen without social responsibility &
Environmental Integrity. ISOs mission is to develop high quality voluntary International Standards which
facilitate international exchange of goods and services, support sustainable and equitable economic
growth, promote innovation and protect health, safety and environment. The 2015 standard aims to
achieve this mission by laying greater emphasis on all interested party concerns.
Probably, the much acclaimed slogan of Indias Prime Minister - Zero defect and Zero effect sums it up
well.
Elimination of a specific requirement on Preventive Actions
A specific clause in the earlier versions of the standards on Preventive Action had been found to be
superfluous requirement. In essence, every requirement of ISO 9001 standard was preventative in nature
and thus organizations were at a loss to specifically identify preventive actions and record them. Thus the
clause was found ineffective. This prompted the makers of the standard to delete the clause and placing
greater emphasis on preventive action in every element of the standard.
Change Management :
Change is the only constant thing in this world is a famous adage. In keeping consonance with this
simple fact of life and the rapid changes happening in every aspect of business, QMS has laid greater
emphasis on a structured approach to change management.
As it looks, the changes are many and major in nature. It would be worth watching how the standard
unfolds after the FDIS is published in March 2015. The challenges would be for the organizations to
understand the intent of the changes and implementing them in true spirit and letter. More challenges
would be for the 3rd party auditors. The new generation auditors must possess a very high domain

knowledge of relevant industry to understand the context of the organisation, the risks associated with them,
the culture of thinking within organisation in terms of their short and long term strategy", "interested parties
and other complex concepts. It is therefore all the more important that the QMS auditors would necessarily
require a great level of competence and mature thinking in the days to come

22-01-2015

Anantha Prabhu, General Manager, Training Services, South Asia Region, BVC
Disclaimer:

This article is intended only to provide the reader a brief overview of the backdrop which formed the basis
of the upcoming ISO 9001:2015 standard and does not purport to be an authentic research paper, nor does
it addresses all the changes envisaged in the standard.