Tag Archives: excellence

ISO9001:2008 … what will the changes mean?

2 Replies

Shaun over at Capable People flagged up the changes to ISO 9001 on his blog over the weekend … Ah, here’s the inside information you’ve all been waiting for.

The changes are so not dramatic that the BSi are giving you … approximately one year after its publication to make any updates. There should not be any major disruption to your organization or your registration and your client manager will guide you through the process.

Sorry, but if the changes are minor, under whelming and very small, mainly relating to clarification, then why give a year to update, and why the need of a client manager to guide you? Is this a case of quality-wash? (We have white and green wash so what colour would quality wash be?)

Without ISO9001 moving forward in line with world of quality, which is now talking in terms of ‘experience’ rather than excellence, or just quality, can the standard remain at the core of the quality management systems paradigm? Or is its day over, and if so what will replace it?

maybe ISO 9004 …

ISO 9004 will undergo a more significant revision but not until end of 2009. According to the BSi the proposed updates focus on the economic sustainability of an organisation. The current suggested title is “Managing for sustainable success – a quality management approach.”

The cynic in me jumps at the sustainable success in the title – surely this will confuse with sustainability in the CSR, triple bottom line sense. Maybe thats the intention – time will tell – but we have to wait over a year to find out.

Meanwhile …

ISO 9001:2008 – dramatic proposed changes

3 Replies

Or Not.

It has been some 5 years since I was actively involved in ISO 9000 implementation, training and audits, but I was still underwhelmed to see the proposed changes to the new ISO9001:2008 standard as posted by Shaun over at Capable People . The world has moved on since 2000 – when the last real changes were made, it would appear the standard has not.

Even the world of quality has moved on from quality of product, quality of service, through excellence to arrive at ‘experience’

Being close to development of other standards though, I can understand the watered down consensus one size fits all committee discussions – and the outcome – but is this the way to bring the most used and influential quality standard up to date? As Shaun says John Seddon will have a field day !

I recall putting ISO 9000 on trial in a court room setting, the standard being accused of not delivering quality, parties put forward their cases for and against, John was the prosecutor, BSi the defence, both calling ‘witnesses’ to the stand.

The verdict? – you can guess, but I will fish out the summary from the Judge and post here.

See also how ISO 9001 is forming the base of a number of standards such as BS6001 – Responsible Sourcing Management – is it up to the job these days?