ISO 9001 is about to get a revision.
Like all of ISO’s more than 17,000 standards, ISO 9001 is periodically reviewed to ensure that it is maintained at the state of the art. ISO 9001:2008, which is due to be published before the end of the year, will replace the year 2000 version of the standard.
How will the transition from ISO 9001:2000 to ISO 9001:2008 be handled?
ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and the IAF (International Accreditation Forum) have agreed an implementation plan to ensure a smooth migration of accredited certification to ISO 9001:2008, after consultation with international groupings representing quality system or auditor certification bodies,
and industry users of ISO 9001 certification services.
The agreed implementation plan in relation to accredited certification is therefore the following: Accredited certification to the ISO 9001:2008 shall not be granted until the publication of ISO 9001:2008 as an International Standard. Certification of conformity to ISO 9001:2008 and/or national equivalents shall only be issued after official publication of ISO 9001:2008 (which should take place before the end of 2008) and after a routine surveillance or recertification audit against ISO 9001:2008. One year after publication of ISO 9001:2008 all accredited certifications issued (new certifications or recertifications) shall be to ISO 9001:2008. Twenty four months after publication by ISO of ISO 9001:2008, any existing certification issued to ISO 9001:2000 shall not be valid.
ISO 9001:2008 does not contain any new requirements!
They have recognized that ISO 9001:2008 introduces no new requirements. ISO 9001:2008 only introduces clarifications to the existing requirements of ISO 9001:2000 based on eight years of experience of implementing the standard world wide with about one million certificates issued in 170 countries to date. It also introduces changes intended to improve consistency with ISO14001:2004
There may be no new requirements, so what will change?
ISO technical committee ISO/TC 176, Quality management and quality assurance, which is responsible for the ISO 9000 family of standards, is preparing a number of support documents explaining the differences between ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 9001:2000 and why and what they mean for users. Once approved, these documents will be posted on the ISO Web site, probably in late 2008.
The “Process Approach” will be fully enforced!
Because the “process approach” was new to quality management systems in ISO 9001:2000, and was so different than the previous procedural and element or clause based approach prevalent in industry prior to 2000, many organizations have flawed implementations of the process approach. Now with many years of experience with the process approach, and diligent oversight by ANAB and other accreditation bodies, the process approach is more fully and consistently understood the registrars and their auditors. There are still some legacy implementations of the process approach which do not completely and effectively implement what is now considered basic essentials of a quality management system. In my opinion registrars and their auditors will use the transition to ISO 9001:2000 to enforce these basics of the process approach on all organizations that are registered.
