The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) have laid the groundwork for a smooth transition of accredited certification to ISO 9001:2008, the latest version of the world’s most widely used standard for quality management systems. ISO 9001:2008, due to be published before the end of the year, will replace the year 2000 version of the standard, which is implemented by both business and private sector organizations in 170 countries.
IAPMO R&T wants to reassure all ISO 9001 clients that very little will be required of them in order to maintain their certification to the new standard. Certification of conformity to ISO 9001:2008 shall only be issued after official publication of the new standard and following a routine surveillance or recertification audit against ISO 9001:2008. One year after publication of ISO 9001:2008, all accredited certifications issued shall be to ISO 9001:2008.
“IAPMO R&T will take care of any necessary paperwork and transition procedures on behalf of our ISO 9001 clients,” said Shirley Dewi, Management System Registration Services manager for IAPMO R&T. “We’ll get you completely up to speed and make the transition as seamless as possible.”
ISO 9001:2008 does not contain any new requirements. It only introduces clarifications to the existing requirements of ISO 9001:2000 based on eight years of experience implementing the standard world wide, with about one million certificates issued to date. It also introduced changes intended to improve consistency with ISO 14001:2004.
Like all of ISO’s more than 17,000 standards, ISO 9001 is periodically reviewed to ensure that it is maintained as state of the art. ISO technical committee ISO/TC 176, Quality management and quality assurance, which is responsible for the ISO 9000 family of standards, is preparing a number of support documents explaining the differences between ISO 9001:2008 and the year 2000 version, why and what they mean for users. These documents will be posted on the ISO Website around October.
IAPMO R&T will gladly walk any client through these documents to ensure full understanding of the changes and how they may affect each individual business.
For more information or guidance, please contact Management System Registration Services at 1-877-4-MYISO-1 or send an e-mail to isoinfo@iapmort.org.
Last modified: August 27, 2008