ISO 9001:2008 - what

will it mean?

Some say you won’t be able to tell the difference between ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 9001:2008, while others say the amendments are crucial. With the new edition due to emerge later this year, two gentlemen in the know explain their views

John Hele

When the 2000 version of ISO 9001 came out, there were some fundamental changes to the 1994 version; the standard was lifted from what was essentially an inspection, quality assurance and control standard to a management system standard. The eight quality management principles were established, as was more emphasis on a system approach to management, much more about competences for employers and a top management orientation, so policies would be driven from the top. While the standard was previously procedure-driven, the 2000 version is much more process-driven.

So ISO 9001:2000 was a revelation for a lot of people. As a result, because the changes were so huge, ISO decided that instead of starting the review process to bring out a new version five years on, three years would be given for everybody to implement the requirements.

ISO 9001, the 2008 version, has been amended, not revised; the changes that will appear have been made to improve clarity, application and interpretation. However, they are very small – it’s more of a case of changing words here and there. The standard is used in over a hundred countries and English is sometimes hard to translate, so the changes are partly ‘tidying up’ in those areas. In the group that’s developed the amendments, ISO/TC 176, there are Spanish and Arabic speakers and people from Japan, China, France and Germany to name a few. Hopefully, now the wording is easier to translate than before.

With regards to a transition period, the ISO/TC 176 committee has said that as far as they’re concerned there are no changes to the standard. This is quite a big thing to say, as had there been any changes to the requirements, a transition period would have been needed. However, a years transition seems sensible.

One change that will appear is that all mentions of ‘quality assurance’ have been removed. The word ‘environment’ has been introduced, in a 'business environment' sense, as has the word ‘risk’. Risk has never appeared in an ISO 9000 series standard before, but as the standard is all about risk at the end of the day, I think this is a huge step forward.

Chris Cox

Although many comments were received at the draft stage, urging a more detailed change to the standard, ISO/TC 176 SC2 WG18 TG1.19 kept within its remit and has restricted the changes to the clarifications emanating from the rigorous, consensus-based ISO/TC 176 interpretations process, together with a few other minor amendments, to increase compatibility with ISO 14001 and the current revision of ISO 9004. (Comments rejected for the reason that they call for major revision to ISO 9001 have been archived for review at the next full revision of the standard).

The process was truly an amendment rather than a revision process so there are definitely no new requirements resulting from the activity; however the number of clarifications made to the text throughout the document means that it is effectively a new version/edition of the standard.

When auditors of ISO 9001:2000 systems come to use this new version of the standard, apart from being aware of, noting and auditing the resulting changes, they should not experience any difficulty with the transition.

About the authors

John Hele is global project manager at BSI Management Systems. He has been involved with management systems for over 30 years, 23 of those spent at BSI and the rest in the defence sector with materials technology. He has overall global responsibility for ISO 9000 related and risk products, which includes being a member of the UK and international standards committees for ISO 9000.

Chris Cox is a member of the CQI's Standards Development Group and has been involved in ISO/TC 176 for quality management and assurance as a UK principal expert since 1995. He currently leads the ISO task group responsible for development of the vocabulary section of ISO 9000.

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