Certification is a way to attest, by the intermediary of a third-party certifier, to a company's ability to provide a service, product or system in accordance with client requirements and regulation requirements. ISO and IEC give the following definition:
Procedure by which a third party gives written assurance
that a product, process or service complies with the requirements
specified in a benchmark.The ISO 9000 family of standards corresponds to all the management best practices benchmarks as regards quality, which are defined by ISO (the International Organisation for Standardization).
ISO 9000 standards were originally written in 1987, with revisions taking place in 1994 and 2000. Thus, the 2000 version of the
ISO 9001 standard, which is part of the ISO 9000 family, is written "ISO 9001:2000". The ISO 9001:2000 standard mainly focuses on the processes used to produce a service or product, whereas the ISO 9001:1994 standard was mainly focused on the product itself. Here is an overview of all the different standards in the ISO 9000 family:
ISO 9000: "Quality Management Systems - Basic Principles and Vocabulary". The ISO 9000 standard describes the principles of a quality management system and defines the terminology
ISO 9001: "Quality Management Systems - Requirements". The
ISO 9001 standard describes the requirements relative to a quality management system either for internal use or for contractual or certification purposes. Therefore, this standard is a group of requirements that companies must follow
ISO 9004: "Quality Management Systems - Guidelines for Improving Performance". This standard, which is intended for internal use and not for contractual purposes, focuses particularly on continually improving performance
ISO 10011: "Guidelines for auditing quality management and/or environmental management systems".
Sat Aug 01, 2009 4:12 am
