ISO 9000 & 14000

ISO 9000 & 14000

International Organization for Standardization

International Organization for Standardization is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations.

ISO is an independent, non-governmental international organization with a membership of 164 national standards bodies.

Organization promotes worldwide proprietary, industrial, and commercial standards.

Founded: 23 February 1947

Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland

They have published 23010 International Standards covering almost all aspects of technology and business. Today they have members from 164 countries and about 160 people work full time for Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland.

HISTORY OF ISO

The organization today known as ISO, began in the 1920s as the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA).

It was suspended in 1942 during World War II, but after the war ISA was approached by the recently-formed United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC) with a proposal to form a new global standards body.

In October 1946, ISA and UNSCC delegates from 25 countries met in London and agreed to join forces to create the new International Organization for Standardization.

The new organization officially began operations in February 1947.

The ISO story

In London, in 1946, 65 delegates from 25 countries meet to discuss the future of International Standardization. In 1947, ISO officially comes into existence with 67 technical committees (groups of experts focusing on a specific subject).

NAMES OF ISO

Because 'International Organization for Standardization' would have different acronyms in different languages (IOS in English, OIN in French for Organisation internationale de normalisation)

Founders decided to give it the short form ISO. ISO is derived from the Greek isos, meaning equal. Whatever the country, whatever the language, we are always ISO.

Developing standard

The experts form a technical committee that is responsible for a specific subject area.

They begin the process with the development of a draft that meets a specific market need. This is then shared for commenting and further discussion.

The voting process is the key to consensus. If that’s achieved then the draft is on its way to becoming an ISO standard.

If agreement isn’t reached then the draft will be modified further, and voted on again.

From first proposal to final publication, developing a standard usually takes about 3 years.

The ISO 9000 family

• ISO 9001 is the standard that gives the requirements for a quality management system.

• ISO 9001:2015 is the latest, improved version.

• It is the only standard in the ISO 9000 family that can be used for certification.

• There are 16 other standardsin the family that can help an organization on specific aspects such as performance improvement, auditing, training…

The ISO 14000 family

• ISO 14001 is the standard that gives the requirements for an environmental management system.

• ISO 14001:2015 is the latest, improved version.

• It is the only standard in the ISO 14000 family that can be used for certification.

• The ISO 14000 family includes 21 other standards that can help an organization specific aspects such as auditing, environmental labelling, life cycle analysis…

The ISO Survey