Finally... the new version of ISO 9001:2015 has been released. I can hear many of you screaming, “Hurray!” Or not. More realistically, I’m sure many of you living in the kaizen world are thinking, “Yeah, so what? This stuff has nothing to do with real kaizen, and in fact, it often creates bureaucracy and more waste.”

I would argue that this might only be true because of the way an organization created and deployed its quality management system (QMS) and has nothing to do with living the spirit behind the requirements, which are just good business practices.

ISO 9001:2015 requirements don’t run counter to kaizen thinking

I say again: There are absolutely no requirements in the ISO 9001:2015 standard that run counter to kaizen thinking. (The registration process is another story that will not be addressed here.) Both ISO 9001:2015 and kaizen practices are built and based on the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model as well as solid, proven business practices developed over the years; unfortunately, rarely have they been integrated together.

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