History of ISO 9000

ISO 9000 grew out of BS 5750, a standard published by the British Standards Institution (BSI) in 1979. Initially, it was used only in manufacturing industries. ISO 9000 is now employed across a variety of other types of businesses. It is a set of international standards of quality management systems. ISO 9000 has been accepted by more than 100 countries as their national quality assurance standard by the end of 1997.

The history of ISO 9000 dates back to Mil-Q-9858a, the first quality standard for military procurement established in 1959 by the US. By 1962, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) developed its quality system requirements for suppliers. In 1965, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) accepted the AQAP (allied quality assurance procedures) specifications for the procurement of equipments.

During the 1970s, BSI published BS 9000 (the first UK standard for quality assurance) and BS 5179 (guidelines for quality assurance) norms. In 1979, it created BS 5750, a series of standards for use by manufacturing companies. They were enforced through assessments and audits. In 1988, ISO (International Standards Organization) adopted the BS 5750 standard without changes and published it globally under the name ISO 9000. The ISO adopted this standard with a view to create an international definition of the necessary characteristics of a quality system for all businesses, regardless of industry. In 1994, the ISO revised the ISO 9000 standard and published it globally.

In the beginning, ISO 9000 was implemented exclusively by large companies. But by mid-1990s, small and mid-sized companies began to increasingly implement these standards. In the United States, the total number of registrations increased from a little more than 2,200 in 1993 to more than 17,000 in 1998. Of these 17,000 registrations, almost 60 percent were held by businesses with annual sales of $100 million or less.

ISO 9000 provides detailed information on ISO 9000, ISO 9000 Standards, ISO 9000 Software, ISO 9000 Consulting and more. ISO 9000 is affiliated with Home Inspections.

How International Organization for Standardization Helps

The International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, is a non-governmental organization that develops technical standards, contributing to making the development, manufacturing, and supply of both supplies and services, cleaner and safer. Providing government with standards regarding health and safety issues, they also promote fair trade between counties. We tend to take many things for granted; we always expect simple objects, like screws, to do the job that we intend them for. ISO ensures just that, and sets standards that make things better for all of our society, as a whole.

With a Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, ISO is a network of standard institutes in 146 different countries. Dating back to 1947, ISO was created by 25 delegates who determined that a new international organization was needed "to facilitate the international coordination and unification of industrial standards". Due to the fact that “International Organization for Standardization” would have different initials in different languages, it was decided to use a word derived from the Greek word “isos”. For this reason, no matter what country you are in, the short form of the organization is always ISO, which means “equal”.

To date, ISO has created nearly 14,000 international standards, covering things like agriculture, mechanical engineering, construction, medical devices and information technology developments. While the majority of ISO standards are geared towards certain products, ISO 900 and 14000 deal with quality and environmental management, and are considered "generic management system standards”. By ’generic,’ this means that they are a list of standards which all products and workplaces must meet, regardless of whether they produce a product or service, and regardless of where they are located. By maintaining customer regulations, as well as doing what they can minimize harmful effects on the environment, ISO standards help ensure that our world is a much better place.

James Hunt has spent 15 years as a professional writer and researcher covering stories that cover a whole spectrum of interest. Read more at http://www.best-baby-strollers.info