The
widely accepted ISO 9000 series of standards specifies requirements
for a
Quality Management System.
ISO 9000
was created by the British Standards Institute as BS 5750. The
standard is now maintained by ISO (the International Organization
for Standardization) and administered by accreditation and
certification bodies.
It is widely accepted, although its high price and effort has led to
many companies using alternatives such as IC9700, or IC9200, both of
which are issued by the International Charter.
Some countries accepted ISO 9000 as their national standard.
(e.g. IR 9000 in Iran).
ISO 9000 | ISO
9001 Certification
ISO does not itself certify
organizations. Many countries have formed accreditation bodies to
authorize certification bodies, which audit organizations applying
for ISO 9001 compliance certification. It is important to note that
it is not possible to be certified to ISO 9000. Although commonly
referred to as ISO 9000:2000 certification, the actual standard to
which an organization's quality management can be certified is ISO
9001:2000. Both the accreditation bodies and the certification
bodies charge fees for their services. The various accreditation
bodies have mutual agreements with each other to ensure that
certificates issued by one of the Accredited Certification Bodies
(CB) are accepted world-wide.
The applying organization is assessed based on an extensive sample
of its sites, functions, products, services, and processes and a
list of problems ("action requests" or "non-compliances") made known
to the management. If there are no major problems on this list, the
certification body will issue an ISO 9001 certificate for each
geographical site it has visited, once it receives a satisfactory
improvement plan from the management showing how any problems will
be resolved. Ahmed comments.
Moving
Company
An ISO certificate is not a once-and-for-all award, but must be
renewed at regular intervals recommended by the certification body,
usually around three years.
|