International Organization for Standardization Press Release:	Ref: 785	24 November 2000
ISO 9000 revisions for publication on 15 December 2000 ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is to publish the year 2000 revisions of its ISO 9000 series of quality management standards on 15 December 2000. The revised standards ISO 9000, ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 have been overwhelmingly approved by ISO’s membership of national standards institutes. The ISO 9000 series of International Standards for quality management is among the most widely known and successful of the 13 000 standards published by ISO since it began operations in 1947. The ISO 9000 standards have become an international reference for quality requirements in business to business dealings and form the basis of more than 350 000 certified quality management systems within private and public sector organizations in at least 150 countries. The following revised standards will be published on 15 December (their prices are indicated in Swiss francs - CHF): ISO 9000, Quality management systems - Fundamentals and vocabulary (CHF 104). ISO 9001, Quality management systems - Requirements (CHF 92). ISO 9004, Quality management systems - Guidelines for performance improvements (CHF 144). To purchase the standards, interested parties should contact the ISO member in their country; a complete list with full contact details is available on ISO’s Web site - www.iso.ch), or ISO Central Secretariat (sales@iso.ch). ISO’s target is to make these standards available on 15 December on as worldwide a basis as possible via the use of information technology. Approximately 90 of ISO’s 137 national members have access via Internet to an ISO server at the organization’s Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, from which they will be able to download the standards to meet local demand. ISO is publishing all three standards in English and French, and ISO 9000 in Russian - these are the official languages of the organization. Enquiries concerning the availability of translations of the standards into other languages should be addressed directly to the ISO member of the relevant country. Compared to the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) versions, only minor "editorial" modifications to improve clarity have been made to the texts which will be published as International Standards ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 9004:2000. In the case of ISO 9000:2000, more substantial modifications have been made to the definitions of auditing terms which it includes. This is due to the continuing evolution of the other standard in the ISO 9000 "core series", ISO 19011, Guidelines on Quality and/or Environmental Management Systems Auditing. It gives guidance on auditing ISO 9001 quality and ISO 14001 environmental management systems, either separately or jointly, and is targeted for publication in 2002. The FDIS versions of ISO 9000, ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 were approved by ISO for publication as International Standards after a two-month ballot. An FDIS ballot is open to all ISO "member bodies". A "member body" is one of three categories of ISO membership and the only one entitled to vote on the acceptance of ISO documents as International Standards. Currently, ISO has 90 member bodies. (The other categories are designed to enable countries with developing economies to benefit from membership, even though they may not yet have the means to participate in the development of International Standards.) An FDIS is approved if the voting results meet the following criteria: not more than one quarter of the total number of votes cast is negative, and two-thirds of the votes cast by the "P-members" (the delegations of national member bodies who have actually participated in the development of the document) are in favour. On the ISO 9000 revisions, ISO’s member bodies voted massively in favour of publication of the drafts as International Standards. The results were as follows: ISO 9000: 59 positive votes out of the total of 62 cast (there was one abstention, but abstentions are excluded from the count); 43 votes of this total were cast by P-members and 40 of these were positive. ISO 9001: 62 positive votes out of the total of 63 cast; 54 votes of this total were cast by P-members and 53 of these were positive. ISO 9004: 62 positive votes out of the total of 63 cast; 54 votes of this total were cast by P-members and 53 of these were positive. Explanatory and guidance documents to help ensure a smooth transition to the ISO 9000:2000 series have been developed by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 176, which is responsible for the ISO 9000 standards. This material, which is periodically updated and expanded as necessary, is available on the Web sites of ISO (www.iso.ch) and ISO/TC 176’s Subcommittee 2 (www.bsi.org.uk/iso-tc176-sc2).
For more information:
Roger Frost Press and Communication Manager Public Relations Services ISO Central Secretariat Tel. +41 22 749 01 11 Fax +41 22 733 34 30 E-mail frost@iso.ch
ISO is the International Organization for Standardization. It is made up of some 140 national standards institutes from countries large and small, industrialized and developing, in all regions of the world. ISO develops voluntary technical standards which contribute to making industrial production and supply more efficient, safer and cleaner, and to making trade between countries easier and fairer. ISO standards also serve to safeguard consumers and users in general of products and services - as well as to making their lives simpler.
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