The International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, is a body that sets standards. Representatives from several national standards bodies are included. Standards are created by this non-governmental organization to guarantee the effectiveness, safety, and quality of goods, services, and systems.
One of the ISO family of quality management standards, ISO9000, was created to assist businesses in efficiently documenting the components of a quality system that are necessary to sustain an effective quality system. They can be used by businesses of any size and are not industry-specific. Best practices, principles, and a common language for quality management systems are outlined in ISO 9000. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), a specialized international standardization agency made up of the national standards bodies of more than 160 nations, originally released ISO 9000 in 1987.
The ISO 9000 series of standards
The following standards are part of the ISO 9000 family:
- ISO 9001:2015: Standards for Quality Management Systems
- ISO 9000:2015: Essentials and Terminology for Quality Management Systems (definitions)
- ISO 9004:2018: Quality Management: Organizational Quality and Sustained Success as Guided by Continuous Improvement
- Guidelines for Auditing Management Systems, ISO 19011:2018
