ISO9001

By Simon Evans, Costain Oil, Gas & Process

The progression of producing new Draft International Standard (DIS) ISO9001 was underway and the committee reviewed part on new 30% terminology covering :

• Context of Organisation
• Leadership
• Planning
• Documented Information
• Nonconformity and Corrective Action

The Future of ISO9001 was discussed identifying them Steering Committee SC2 main options;

1) Leave ISO9001s position unchanged, as it is a minimum acceptable level of requirements for QMS, but to be enhanced in a future version.

2) Withdraw standard, as only Guidance Documents will be needed in the future

3) Leave ISO9001 unchanged as it is, but also offer another standard with an enhanced (Higher Level) set of QMS requirements that can be used for certification

4) Leave ISO9001 unchanged, but also offer another standard with a reduced (lower level) set of QMS requirements that can be used for certification.

5) Re-introduce a series of 3 documents (9001,9002,9003) with higher middle and lower sets of requirements.

6) Develop a single ISO 9001 standard that includes a much broader range of higher & lower sets of requirements, and allows organisations greater choice through the 1.2 Application Clause, as to what they comply with.

7) Develop a single ISO 9001 standard with a full range of higher,middle & lower sets of requirements with some form of points based or sliding scale for reporting the results (similar to business excellence model).

Option 6 was the preferable.