ISO 9000 - Quality Management

ISO 9000 - Quality management

The ISO 9000 family addresses various aspects of quality management and contains some of ISO’s best known standards. The standards provide guidance and tools for companies and organizations who want to ensure that their products and services consistently meet customer’s requirements, and that quality is consistently improved.

There are many standards in the ISO 9000 family, including:

    * ISO 9001:2008 - sets out the requirements of a quality management system

    * ISO 9000:2005 - covers the basic concepts and language

    * ISO 9004:2009 - focuses on how to make a quality management system more efficient and effective

    * ISO 19011:2011 - sets out guidance on internal and external audits of quality management systems.

ISO 9001:2008

ISO 9001:2008 sets out the criteria for a quality management system and is the only standard in the family that can be certified to (although this is not a requirement). It can be used by any organization, large or small, regardless of its field of activity. In fact ISO 9001:2008 is implemented by over one million companies and organizations in over 170 countries.

Quality Management Principles

The standard is based on a number of quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach and continual improvement. These principles are explained in more detail in the pdf Quality Management Principles. Using ISO 9001:2008 helps ensure that customers get consistent, good quality products and services, which in turn brings many business benefits.

source: http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/management-standards/iso_9000.htm