How Do You Change a Good Thing? Slowly!
Subcommittee 2 of ISO Technical Committee 176 has been working for some time on the next changes to a well-known pair of quality management system (QMS) standards: ISO 9001:2000, “Quality management systems—Requirements,” and ISO 9004:2000. The intent of the work is to produce a minor change (being called an “amendment”) to ISO 9001 for clarification, and a full revision to ISO 9004.
In 2005, the International Organization for Standardization conducted what’s termed a “systematic review” of ISO 9001:2000. This is actually a ballot that requires ISO member bodies to assess the use of the standard being reviewed in their countries and vote on whether it should be reaffirmed as is, revised or cancelled. In the case if ISO 9001:2000, the review concluded that a minor amendment of ISO 9001 should be developed to improve the standard’s clarity. On the other hand, the review concluded that ISO 9004 needed a major revision to make it more useful.
Since the review was completed, specifications have been prepared for the amendment of ISO 9001 and the revision of ISO 9004. The drafts are well underway, and two working drafts have circulated within Working Group 18 of ISO/TC 176, Subcommittee 2. By the time you read this, the first committee draft (CD) should be available to the ISO/TC 176 member bodies for comments. The target for issuing the amended ISO 9001 and revised ISO 9004 is sometime in 2009.
Although there may be quite a few changes to ISO 9001, I think it’s reasonable to expect them all to be minor. This is because the changes are intended to improve the clarity of the text; improve its usefulness as guidance to ISO 14001, “Environmental management systems—Requirements”; and to address issues raised in the ISO 9001 international interpretations process. In other words, at this point the objective appears to be clarification of the intended meaning, not changes in requirements. A few words of caution:
• There’s been a significant amount of pressure from a few countries to expand the permitted changes so that requirements could be added. Their rationale is that the amended ISO 9001 won’t be issued until 2009, and that document’s next systematic review wouldn’t be due until at least 2012. If it were determined that a revision was needed then, it would take several years to develop. This means that the requirements of ISO 9001 would essentially remain stable for perhaps 15 years or more which, it’s argued, is a long time.
• Minor clarifications have a tendency to turn into major changes for some users. If they’ve interpreted part of the standard differently from its originally intended meaning, and that meaning is clarified so it’s evident that the users’ interpretation isn’t acceptable, they’ll need to change their systems.
Even though it’s likely that the 2009 changes will have little effect on current users, it’s a good idea to keep up with the revision process.
ISO 9004:2000’s revision is quite a different matter. Working Group 18 has essentially started over with this one. Early working drafts were very different from ISO 9004:2000, and I expect the committee draft for comment will be different in both format and content than the current standard.
The idea of this revision is to help organizations with an ISO 9001 QMS build a quality system to support long-term organizational sustainability. There’s a balancing act involved here. On the one hand, there’s a desire to maintain the consistency that the current ISO 9004 has with ISO 9001 to make it easy to use the two together. On the other hand, it’s desirable to add newer concepts in ISO 9004 that may not clearly fit within the existing structure of ISO 9001. This has proven to be a difficult challenge but the working group is confident that the objective can be achieved.
The ISO revision process provides that at least two committee drafts and a draft international standard will circulate before the project is completed, so there will be plenty of opportunity for comments. At some point during the revision process, the American Society for Quality will make copies of drafts available for purchase (most likely as PDF downloads). At that point, public comments and recommendations will be welcomed.
Because ISO 9000 was updated in 2005, it’s not yet a candidate for systematic review. On the other hand, it’s recognized that changes to that standard might become necessary to support the 2009 versions of ISO 9001 and ISO 9004. The ISO subcommittee responsible for ISO 9000 has started to get ready for such changes as the drafts of ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 mature.
John E. (Jack) West is a consultant, business advisor and author with more than 30 years of experience in a wide variety of industries. From 1997 through 2005 he was chair of the U.S. TAG to ISO/TC 176 and lead delegate for the United States to the International Organization for Standardization committee responsible for the ISO 9000 series of quality management standards. He remains active in ISO/TC 176 and is chair of the ASQ Standards Group.
|
