Research

ISO 9001 revision achieves its goals and offers great opportunities (2010)

This paper highlights the most important benefits, following the revision of ISO 9001 standard. A survey was carried out on over 100 quality managers of ISO 9000 certified organisations in the service and manufacturing sectors of UK industry.

The results show the benefits with significantly higher than the moderate score, at 99% confidence level, were: ‘Continuous process improvement’, ‘Continuous product/service improvement’, ‘Focus on effectiveness and efficiency’, ‘Better understanding of customer requirements’ and ‘Higher customer satisfaction’. Thus, the study suggests that ISO 9000:2000 revision has achieved most of its goals.

Overall, the paper shows the ‘newer’ ISO 9001 standard offers great opportunities. It has much to offer in the areas of process management, customer satisfaction and continuous improvement, the conceptual evolution of quality standards may increase the problem of ritualistic implementation.

 

Authors

Gotzamani, K. (2010), ‘Results of an empirical investigation on the anticipated improvement areas of the ISO 9001:2000 standard’, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, Vol. 21, No.6.