ISO 9000 and the following

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

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

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”.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) created the Quality Management System (QMS) standards in 1987. The standards have been regularly reviewed every few years by the International Organization for Standardization. The version in 1994 and was called the ISO 9000:1994 series; comprising of the ISO 9001:1994, 9002:1994 and 9003:1994 versions.

The last revision was in the year 2000 and the series was called ISO 9000:2000 series. However the ISO 9002 and 9003 standards were integrated and one single certifiable standard was created under ISO 9001:2000.