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ISO 9001:2000 The ISO 9000 series of standards has undergone revisions and updates. Every 5 years each ISO standard is required to undergo a review and update if needed. The ISO 9000 standards were last updated in 1994. That update was minor with just a few small additions to the standard. The revision for 2000 was a complete make over of the entire set of standards. The new 2000 update is a major revision of the 9000 series of standards. It incorporates several concepts that will tend to bring the standard into better alignment and harmony with what are generally considered "best practice" strategies for quality management systems. The new revision at first looks like a complete rewrite, but you don’t have to throw out your old quality manual . The standard has undergone a reorganization to a process oriented structure. All the 1994 requirements are still there, with a few new ones. The two most obvious of these are more focus on customer satisfaction and continuous improvement. This is driven by a process model for quality management. Most companies are probably practicing many of the new requirements, they just aren’t formally in your quality system yet. You can view the first table for a comparison of the 1994 to the 2000 revision and another table mapping the 2000 revision against the current version. The committee assigned the update has determined a need for more emphasis on the processes and systems used for quality management. There will be three standards that form the basis of ISO 9000:2000:
• ISO 9000 - Fundamentals and vocabulary The old ISO 9002 and 9003 standards have become obsolete. Under the new system companies will implement the elements of the ISO 9001:2000 that apply to their business. Thus if you do not design products, you do not apply that part of the standard and need to include an exclusion in your Quality Manaul. The 20 elements that formed the 1994 standard are folded into a new structure with four sections:
1. Management responsibility ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 now form what ISO calls a "Consistent Pair" of quality management standards. It is intended that the 9001 document will define the minimum requirements and that 9004 will provide guidance for companies to go beyond the minimum requirements by a process of continual improvement. The old Customer Complaint, Self-Audit, and Corrective and Preventive Action requirements were pointed in the direction of continual improvement, but now it will be a fundamental theme. Another major difference is a requirement for actual measurement of customer satisfaction. The concept of customer satisfaction is a fundamental feature of most modern quality management philosophies. ISO9000:2000 also places more emphasis on the need to provide and make available specific types of resources. The required resources include such elements as information, communication, infrastructure and work environment protection. If your company is currently certified to one of the older ISO 9000 standards, you may be wondering what happens now?. Those of you certified to the soon-to-be-obsolete 9002 or 9003 standards may be especially concerned. ISO 9001:2000 is planned to build on the requirements of the old system. So, you have the foundation already in place to make the transition to the ISO9000:2000 standard. Most of your existing systems and documentation will simply fold into your ISO 9001:2000 system. There will be a need for some new procedures, and the quality systems manual may need to be reorganized or at least re-indexed. The revision of the ISO 9000 standards wasneeded to take the standards to the next level of achievement. The ISO9000:2000 standards builds on the old requirements, with the goal of encouraging continual improvement of quality performance, resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction. For more information contact Leo
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