What is ISO 9000?

The International Organization for Standardization publishes the ISO 9000 family of standards, which provides the foundation for quality management systems (QMS). These standards are among the most widely recognised and widely used quality management standards in the world.

The ISO 9000 family includes:

• ISO 9000 – Fundamentals and vocabulary
• ISO 9001 – Requirements for a Quality Management System
• ISO 9004 – Guidance for achieving sustained success
• ISO 19011 – Guidelines for auditing management systems

ISO 9000 describes the fundamental concepts and principles of quality management which are universally applicable to the organisation seeking sustainable success, confident in supply chain, improvement, confident to customers, etc. ISO 9000 also specifies the terms and definitions that apply to all quality management and quality management system standards developed by ISO/TC 176. ISO 9000 is not able to certify. If an organisation is looking for quality management ISO, you should refer to ISO 9001. ISO 9001 is the only one able to certify among the ISO 9000 family.

ISO 9001 standard lists all the quality management system requirements. If an organisation plans to get ISO 9001 certified, you need to fulfill the requirements in the ISO 9001 standard. The latest version of ISO 9001 is ISO 9001:2015. This was the 5th revision published in the year 2015. The previous version was ISO 9001:2008, which was published in 2008.

Note: ISO 9002 has been withdrawn and is no longer part of the ISO 9000 family.