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?