II. ISO and ISO 9000
The International Standards Organization is dedicated to creating and developing standards to help facilitate the international exchange of goods and services. It consists of members from national standard bodies of 100 different countries.
Standardization has become required as a result of free market economies that encourage diverse sources of supply. Fair competition is created by creating identifiable, clearly defined common references that are recognized worldwide. "An industy-wide standard, internationally recognized, developed by a consensus among trading partners, serves to facilitate the language of trade." ISO Easy
ISO 9000 is the family of standards that describe the framework, models, specification and guidance for quality management systems. It represents the best practice in management and control when applied to production. The primary concern of this standard is the quality assurance of functional organizational capabilities. It affects any member within an organization associated with planning, design, sales, training, supply, manufacturing, inspection, testing, customer services, engineering, or field services.
ISO 9001 is a model for quality assurance in design, development, production, installation and service organizations. The standards in this document can be used by an organization to build a quality system for almost any product or service. The guidelines for the application of ISO 9001 to the development, supply and maintenance of software is given the number ISO 9000-3.
There are twenty requirements under ISO 9001 that a company must meet. Documenting and standardizing processes used to develop the end product under each of these criteria will result in a quality product. ISO 9001 is not intended to standardize the end product, but rather the process used in the various stages from creating, implementation, and support of that product. The underlying goal is create quality processes that will result in a high quality product.