Chemistry International
Vol. 21, No. 1
January 1999
News
and Notices from Other Societies and Unions
Smooth Transition to Improved ISO 9000 Standards
Changeover to the improved ISO 9000 standards, which the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) aims to publish
in November 2000, will be a smooth one for the businesses around the
world which are implementing the current versions.
"A major requirement of the ISO 9000 revision process
is that organizations which have implemented the current ISO 9000 standards
will find it easy to transition to the revised standards," says
ISO, adding, "Transition planning guidance is being produced."
ISO gives the assurances in a recent document, "Introduction to
the revision of the ISO 9000 standards". An estimated 200,000-plus
ISO 9000-based quality management systems are being operated worldwide
by organizations of all types in order to ensure their efficiency and
their ability to meet their customers' requirements. As a result, interest
in the Year 2000 revisions of the standards is intense, and ISO is keen
to keep current and future ISO 9000 users up to date on developments.
The Introduction document summarizes the reasons for revising
the ISO 9000 standards and outlines the direction the revisions are
taking. In fact, all ISO standards (currently more than 11,500) are
reviewed at least every five years to ensure that they remain the state
of the art. The ISO 9000 series was published in 1987 and lightly revised
in 1994. The Year 2000 revisions will be much more thoroughgoing, taking
into account the considerable international experience of implementing
them.
However, ISO says that the revised standards, like the
current ones, will impose no rules on the presentation of a quality
manual. It states, "This will allow organizations to continue to
document their quality management systems in a manner which reflects
their own ways of doing business. The revision of the ISO 9000 standards
will not require the rewriting of an organization's quality management
system documentation."
In order to ensure that the revised standards will be
of maximum benefit, ISO has conducted an international survey of user
requirements. In addition, it has an ongoing process which allows for
direct feedback from users and customers at key points during the development
of the revisions. This process is helping to determine how well user
requirements are being met in the documents under development and to
identify opportunities for improving them further before publication
as ISO standards.
The revised standards, ISO 9001 and ISO 9004, are currently
at the stage of "Committee Drafts" (CDs), which normally are
internal documents circulated for comment only to the ISO members directly
participating in their development. After the CD stage, the standards
are released to ISO's membership as a whole as Draft International Standards,
which are publicly available documents. Due to the huge interest in
the ISO 9000 revisions, orders for the CDs of ISO 9001 and ISO 9004
may be addressed to ISO national members and to the ISO Central Secretariat.
However, it should be understood that the documents are dynamic ones
which will certainly evolve before they reach the status of International
Standards.
ISO/TC 176/SC 2, the ISO technical body responsible for
developing the revised standards, has established a World Wide Web site
to provide information. Users who would like to give input or participate
in the validation of the standards may contact ISO/TC 176/SC 2 directly
via the web site: http://www.bsi.org.uk/isotcl76sc2/.
Information may also be obtained from ISO's national members, as well
as being posted on ISO's own web site, ISO Online: http://www.iso.ch/.
For more information:
Roger Frost, Press Officer
Tel.: + 4122 749 0111
Fax: + 4122 733 34 30
Email: [email protected].