Future revision of ISO 9000 and ISO 9001

The project plan

The standards that make up the ISO 9000 series are now on different review cycles with a five-year gap between ISO 9000 and ISO 9004. The working group for the series, ISO/TC 176, wants to harmonize these cycles in order to restore their interdependency.

The future of the other standards in the ISO 9000 series is influenced by these core standards and it is therefore critical that all the standards are based on sound principles and practice.

The CQI has an important role in influencing the development of these standards and has mobilized a project team to develop a position paper reflecting the views of CQI members that will be submitted to BSI.

Chair of the Standards Development Group, Tony Brown appointed Vice Chair David Hoyle as Project Manager, who has assembled a team of members representing the different stakeholder groups.

Launching the project just after the YouGovStone event in May 2010 where participants reported that ISO 9001 hinders the promotion of a quality culture in UK business, David is not unaware of the differing opinions among CQI members and non-members alike. He has launched several discussions on the CQI group at www.linkedin.com and the exchanges have proved very useful in revealing perceptions and ideas for improvement.

The project will run until 2015 when the next revisions of ISO 9000 and ISO 9001 are planned to be released. There are five phases running up to the BSI meeting in December:

1. Data mining: Gather views, issues, propositions and justifications for change in a statement of propositions
2. Consolidation: Review results and form the basis of a plan for phase 3
3. Drafting: A position paper and associated standards will be drafted
4. Consultation and validation: Test the conclusions of phase 3 in the wider CQI community and invite feedback
5. Publication: Finalise the submission to BSI taking account of the feedback.

During July and August 2010, a membership survey was used to gather feedback from users of the standards. The preliminary survey results are available to view.

ISO 9000 Conference 2010

The results of the survey were announced and a preliminary position paper was presented at our ISO 9000 Conference on 27 September 2010. There were over 30 members engaged in discussion sharing ideas with other quality professionals.

Nigel Croft, Chair of TC 176/SC2 gave a presentation which is available to view. Members are encouraged to participate in the ISO 9000 User Survey which is now live.

We had some very good feedback from attendees including this comment from Simon Dockerty which he has kindly agreed for us to publish.

"I found it refreshing to be sharing ideas with a group of quality professionals rather than the more ‘directional’ views of auditors, BSI, clients and colleagues. This is exactly what I was hoping to get from my membership so the morning has given me a real boost to get on with my portfolio."

Contributing to the debate

Within the CQI Group on Linkedin discussions are on-going on topics related to the future of the ISO 9000 family. There is also a SDG Linkedin forum for members of SDG.

Members who missed the conference and would like to contribute to the development of the CQI's Position Paper on the future of the ISO 9000 Family of standards should contact David Hoyle, Project Manager.

Status of the Position Paper

• February 2011 - Draft position paper released to the PPB and for wider circulation among special interest groups.
• May 2011 - Revised version submitted to BSI for circulation to members of QS/1 (The BSI technical committee responsible for standards in the field of with quality management).
• July 2011 - QS/1 agreed to set up a working group to review the 49 individual propositions within the CQI Position Paper and agree a UK position for the ISO/TC 176 meeting in Beijing in October 2011.
• October 2011 - UK position paper for the revision of ISO 9000 was produced and submitted to ISO/TC 176 SC1 & SC2, via the UK's mirror committee QS/1. This paper draws substantially on CQI Position Paper on ISO 9000.
• October 2011 - Tony Brown of SDG presents UK Position Paper to TC 176 SC1 and receives a favourable response from most delegates present. TC 176 SC1 pass resolution agreeing to the UK position paper being an input to the next revision of ISO 9000.

The CQI Position on the future of the ISO 9000 family

We propose a radical re-assessment of the content and structure of the family of standards because the current documents do not reflect current management thinking and practice. Quality must be the first priority of any organization and we propose a return to the codification of fundamental concepts and principles of quality management. Of critical importance is the fact that an organization has only one mission and one system of management for accomplishing that mission; that an organization is a social system and its management system is dynamic and not a set of documents. To support the concept of quality management in this wider context, we propose a single management system standard to guide management system development, based on key fundamental management concepts.

We also propose repositioning quality management as the discipline that provides organizations with the capability of delivering the required outputs and managing that capability in a way that produces the best balance of desired outcomes for all stakeholders (not only customers) whilst managing the risk of unintended outcomes. We propose several changes to established definitions where current definitions lead to confusion and a number of additional terms that are fundamental to understanding process management within the context of quality management.

Summary of the 49 propositions contained in our position paper

Propositions 1 – 9 introduce fundamental concepts into ISO 9000 including:

• The concept of organization purpose as the basis on which its performance is judged and the organization managed
• The concept of an external environment and what organizations can and cannot influence but must adapt to survive
• The concept of a management system and the needs and expectations of stakeholders being the driver of outcomes for that management system
• The importance of quality relative to stakeholder expectations and how these are analysed and prioritised to make quality the first priority
• The concept of quality management and its components of quality planning, control, improvement and assurance
• Achieving quality through effectively managed people, processes and resources in a dynamic environment including an in depth explanation of the process approach
• Role of standards in developing supplier capability and customer confidence thus placing ISO 9000, ISO 9001, ISO 9004 and ISO 19011 in context.

Propositions 10 – 23 recommend changes to the quality management principles including:

• An introduction to the quality management principles that places them in context and shows their alignment with the concepts
• The introduction of three new principles; the quality first principle, the assurance principle and the control principle
• The introduction of application criteria to each of the principles as organizational competences to be achieved (i.e. outcomes not inputs)
• Minor changes to the customer focus principle and leadership principle
• Removing the word approach in 4 principles by changing process approach to management by process, systems approach to systemic perspective and factual approach to management by fact with corresponding changes to the descriptions
• Dropping the word continual from the continual improvement principle and the word supplier from the Mutually beneficial supplier relationships principle
• Removing the model of a process-based management system as it is flawed in several ways
• Recommendation that the concepts and principle be invoked in ISO 9001 clause 5.1 in order to promote their application and improve consistency of purpose/

Propositions 24 – 38 recommended changes in the vocabulary:

• Adopting a more user-friendly vocabulary and maintaining online glossary
• Creating consistency in terminology and updating several definitions to remove ambiguity and create alignment with modern management thinking.

Propositions 39 – 45 recommend changes to the structure of the ISO 9000 family:

• A recommendation for a single management system standard that will guide management system development. It won't be for certification purposes
• The harmonising revision cycles so that ISO 9000 becomes the primary standard from which the requirements of ISO 9001 and guidelines in ISO 9004 are derived
• Recommendation that ISO 9001 revert to its intended use as an assessment standard for quality assurance purposes with a change in the way the requirements are expressed from being activities to perform to outcomes to achieve
• Ceasing to embody ISO 9001 requirements within other standards as it creates resistance to change  and supporting the proliferation of management system assessment standards providing they have a common structure and terminology.

Propositions 46 – 49 address the guidance standards

We recommend a systemic review of associated guides in the ISO 9000 family and the provision of a guide for using/interpreting ISO 9001 and the inclusion in ISO 9001 of a guide to the selection and use of the standards in the family so that they are better understood and used.