Overview of ISO 9001 Standards and Its Benefits

Business Articles | April 28, 2011

The rules of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) require that all standards are reviewed every five years to ensure that they reflect the best practice in the particular subject and take into account any lessons that have been lernt during the application of the standard. The outcome of these reviews is that standards are confirmed, revised or withdrawn.

In 1990 the technical committee (TC 176) responsible for ISO 9001 adopted a two-phase revision process. The first phase, undertaken in 1994, resulted in limited changes to the standard. In 1996 TC176 reaffirmed the two-phase revision process and preparation of the second phase revisions is now in progress.

The first review and revision in 1994 represented, in general, a "tidying up" exercise intended to clarify and any previous areas of ambiguity and make better use the standards.

This second revision is intended to be a much more fundamental set of changes and includes a significant number of changes both in style and content of the standards.

In 1997 TC 176 undertook a global survey of users and customers of ISO 9001 and the following significant needs, amongst others, were determined from an analysis of the responses:

The revised standards should have increased compatibility with the ISO 14000 series of Environmental Management System Standards.
The revised standards should have a common structure based on a process model.
Provision should be made for the tailoring of ISO 9001 requirements to omit requirements that do not apply to an organization.
ISO 9001 requirements should include demonstration of continuous improvement and prevention of non-conformity.
The revised standards should be simple to use, easy to understand, and use clear language and terminology.
The revised standards should be suitable for all sizes of organizations, operating in any economic or industrial sector, and the manufacturing orientation of the current standards should be removed.

In the same year, 1997, TC176 also issued a document entitled "Quality Management Principles and Guidelines on their Application: (ref. ISO/TC176/SC 2/N130).

Whilst the 1994 standard were not developed on the basis of this Quality Management Principles (QMP) there are of course aspects of the standard, which addresses some of their requirements. The 2008 standard have been developed from the Quality Management Plans and the chart below shows how the changes between 1994 and 2000 move the standard closer to the requirements of the QMPs.

BENEFITS OF ISO 9001 :-

There are two types of benefits for ISO: 9001 certification and they are internal as well as external as per details given below.

INTRINSIC: -

Competitiveness through cost reduction by eliminating waste, rework, and scrap overtime.
Improve efficiency, productivity and effectiveness.
Increased customer confidence.
Improve employee morale.
Improve cycle time.
Improve communication and quality of information.

EXTRINSIC: -

Worldwide recognition and credibility.
Access to European and world markets.
Qualification to bid on new contracts.
Improved corporate quality image.
Tool for motivating suppliers to conform.
Reduction in customer audit.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I am Alina Walace, professional content writer for management articles. I have written many articles on iso 9001 documents for Quality Management. I preferred ISO 14001 for Environment Management System. I also provide ohsas 18001 to any Hospital.