ISO 9000 is an important marketing tool and is recognized throughout the world. Maintained by the ISO (international standards organization), it is a family of ISO standards for quality management systems. ISO 9000 grew out of the British Standards Institution’s BS 5750 standard. The ISO 9000 series is managed by various accreditation and certification bodies. Although the standard was first applied to manufacturing industries, it is now used in a variety of other types of businesses.
Studies show that the history of industrialization has seen many standards in terms of quality. For example, during the two world wars, a high percentage of bullets and bombs exploded in the factories themselves in the course of manufacturing. In an effort to curb such casualties, the UK Ministry of Defense appointed inspectors to factories to oversee the production process.
In 1959, the United States introduced Mil-Q-9858a, the first quality standard for military procurement. In 1962, NASA developed its quality system requirements for suppliers. Six years later, NATO accepted the AQAP (Allied Quality Assurance Procedures) specifications for equipment procurement. In 1969, UK and Canada introduced providers? quality assurance standards.
During the 1970s, the British Standards Institution (BSI) published BS 9000 (the UK’s first standard for quality control) and BS 5179 (guidelines for quality control). During the period, BSI held meetings with the industry to establish a common standard. Consequently, in 1979, the institution developed BS 5750, a series of standards for use by manufacturing companies. They were enforced through assessments and audits.
In 1987, the BSI revised the standard to also include service providers and manufacturing industries. In 1988, ISO adopted BS 5750 without change and published it globally under the name ISO 9000.
In 1994, ISO revised the standard. In December 2000, the standard was reorganized again. The new ISO 9000 standard has many similarities to its predecessors.