Quality

ISO 9000 is a series of standards and guidelines developed by the International Organisation for Standardisation, which lays out the requirements for the implementation of a quality management system within an organisation, aimed at increasing business efficiency, improving the procedure for the provision of services, and achieving customer satisfaction.
The standards of the ISO 9000 series are as follows:
ISO 9000, called Quality Management Systems – Fundamentals and Vocabulary: issued in 2000; last revision in 2005 (ISO 9000:2005) adopted in the same year by the UNI (UNI EN ISO 9000:2005); the standard defines the vocabulary and the essential principles of quality management systems and their organisation;
ISO 9001, called Quality Management Systems – Requirements: issued in 1994, substantially revised in 2000; last revision in 2008 (ISO 9001:2008), adopted in the same year by the UNI (UNI EN ISO 9001:2008[1]); the standard defines the requirements of a quality management system for an organisation. The requirements are of a “general nature” and can be implemented by any type of organisation.
ISO 9004, called Managing for the sustained success of an organisation – a quality management approach; issued in 1994, substantially revised in 2000; last revision in 2009 (ISO 9004:2009) adopted in the same year by the UNI (UNI EN ISO 9004:2009); the document is not a standard but provides guidance to organisations in achieving sustained success through quality management.
In the past, there were also the ISO 9002 and 9003 standards, which were replaced by ISO 9001. Their certification is no longer recognised nationally and internationally, as it was definitively withdrawn in 2003.
ISO 9001:2000/2008 provides for a global and complete certification approach so that certain sectors or business processes cannot be excluded if present in the organisation and needed to satisfy customers.
ISO 9001 is the only standard within the ISO 9000 family to which organisations can certify; the others are only useful but optional guides intended to ensure the correct application and interpretation of the quality system principles. The ISO 9000 identifies the “lexicon” for 9001 and 9004. Its last revision (issued by the ISO and adopted by the UNI) dates back to 2005; in this last edition, the lexicon was expanded and revised in order to allow the application of ISO 9001 also to other areas (administrations, universities, service companies, etc.) ISO 9004 provides tips and suggestions on how to improve the requirements laid down in ISO 9001.
The 2000 standard was also incorrectly named Vision 2000. This term is not the name of a standard, but a generic name that aims at identifying a series of activities (training, documentation, etc.) concerning the new family of quality standards created in 2000. Vision 2000 is therefore not a quality standard.
The full name of the standard adopted in Italy is UNI EN ISO 9001:2008 because the ISO standard is harmonised, published and disseminated by the Italian National Agency for Unification and by the European Committee for Standardisation.
The standards of the ISO 9000 series are universal and their applicability does not depend on the size or sector of the business, which may be a company or any other type of organisation. They define the generic principles that a company must follow, but not the way in which it must produce certain products. Therefore, they are not applicable to products, but only to the company that produces them. From this point of view, the ISO 9001 guarantees the control of the production process and its effectiveness, but not its efficiency.
Currently, the ISO 9000 standards are used in industries as a reference model for the qualification and selection of suppliers and in contracts between suppliers and customers.
In particular, in the case of suppliers, it is very useful to refer to ISO 10005, which establishes the guidelines for the definition of the quality plan, a useful tool that every supplier should adopt in order to demonstrate how it intends to fulfil the contractual obligations towards the customer. In fact, the quality plan can be considered a subset of the quality system of a company that, even though it does not have the ISO 9001 certification, intends to explain the rules of conduct of its own system to the customer.
From the point of view of the client company, in essence, the preparation of the quality plan in reference to the contract is the first logical step needed to understand how the supplier manages the contract.
ISO 9001 is becoming more and more widespread in Italy and Europe with significant annual increases. It is mandatory for some sectors, and for public competitions (i.e. contracts and calls for tenders).
On 14 November 2008, ISO published the new edition of ISO 9001:2008 www.iso.org. No requirements have been added or removed, but the existing ones have been better specified.
On 26 November 2008 in Italy, UNI withdrew edition 2000[2] and replaced it with UNI EN ISO 9001:2008.

Source: Wikipedia