ISO was created by the International Standard Organization to allow external verification that a quality system produces consistent and continuously improving quality product. This standard is required in many European countries and is very critical in safely related markets like mining, oil/gas, and hazardous materials handling. This set of articles is here to help companies understand ISO before they start a large implementation project.

Many times, quality is not the main driver behind the requirement for ISO 9001:2008 certification. To often, the requirement for ISO is driven by marketing and the need to sell products into a specific market (like the EU). In these cases, management may or may not be "dedicated to the quality program". They may not commit the proper resources to develop a truly effective quality system that really drives up the quality of the companies' services and products. Unfortunately, a misguided implementation may result in a burdensome quality system that frustrates everyone, increase the cost of manufacturing, and starts a downward resource spiral.

The information on this site is for both "dedicated" and "un-dedicated" implementations. In fact, the information on this site is especially critical for un-dedicated implementations because you must have great systems to operate with substandard resources. Quality managers may also want to use the articles in this group to start a discussion with top management about their level of dedication to the ISO 9001 quality system.


The Basics of ISO 9001:2008 Gap Analysis
Gap Analysis is part of most early ISO implementation evaluations.