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ISO first published its ISO 9001 standard in 1987,
and later published an
updated version in 1994. In an effort to
address the changing needs of its
users, ISO has updated its ISO
9001 standard in 2000 and again in 2008.
The newest version
is known as ISO 9001 2008.
The ISO 9001 quality management standard
applies to areas such as
manufacturing, processing, servicing,
printing, forestry, electronics, steel,
food processing, legal
services, financial services, trucking, banking, retailing,
drilling,
recycling, aerospace, construction, exploration, textiles,
pharmaceuticals,
oil and gas, pulp and paper, publishing,
petrochemicals, shipping, mining, energy,
telecommunications,
plastics, metals, research, health care, hospitality, utilities,
aviation, machine tools, agriculture, government, education, recreation,
tourism,
fabrication, sanitation, software development, consumer
products, transportation,
instrumentation, computing, biotechnology,
chemicals, consulting, insurance etc.
ISO has two kinds of quality management
standards: requirements and
guidelines. Together
these two kinds of quality standards make up what is
known as the
ISO 9000 family of standards.
Requirements are the formal expectations
that you must meet if you wish to
be officially certified or
registered. They are compulsory. Guidelines, on the other
hand, are suggestions and recommendations only. They are voluntary. In
the past,
ISO had three sets of quality requirements: ISO 9001, ISO
9002, and ISO 9003.
However, now there’s only one standard: ISO 9001
2008. ISO 9002 and 9003
have been dropped.
In the past, ISO’s quality guidelines included ISO
8402, ISO 9000, ISO 9004,
ISO 10005, ISO 10011, ISO 10012, and ISO
10013. But most of these standards
are changing as well. ISO 8402
1994 and ISO 9000 1994 have been replaced
by
ISO 9000 2005. And ISO 9004 2000 has
become ISO 9004 2009, while
the ISO 10011
series has been turned into ISO 19011.
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