The recently released final draft of the ISO 9001:2015 standard for quality management systems has now been voted on by members of both the ISO and CEN standards bodies. The latest version still targets the same goal—to help organizations improve overall performance—while addressing the profound changes that have emerged during the last seven years.

As stated in the foreword, this fifth edition of the ISO 9001 standard introduces “revised quality management principles [and] new concepts.” A review of the new clauses reveals the goal to better align quality management with overall business management, and to simplify the implementation of the ISO 9001 requirements.

Sounds great... on paper. But how much pain will be involved to achieve ISO 9001:2015 certification? Some of the new concepts differ dramatically from previous practices and approaches.

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