ISO 9000 document suite

ISO 9000 is composed of the following sections:

* ISO 9000:2000, Quality management systems - Fundamentals and vocabulary. covers the basics of what quality management systems are and also contains the core language of the ISO 9000 series of standards. The latest version is ISO 9000:2005.

* ISO 9001 Quality management systems - Requirements is intended for use in any organization which designs, develops, manufactures, installs and/or services any product or provides any form of service. It provides a number of requirements which an organization needs to fulfill if it is to achieve customer satisfaction through consistent products and services which meet customer expectations. This is the only implementation for which third-party auditors may grant certifications. The latest version is :2000.

* ISO 9004 Quality management systems - Guidelines for performance improvements. covers continual improvement. This gives you advice on what you could do to enhance a mature system. This standard very specifically states that it is not intended as a guide to implementation.

There are many different standards which are referenced in ISO 9001 family. A lot of them do not even carry "ISO 900x" numbers. For example, parts of the 10,000 range are also considered part of the 9000 family: ISO 10007:1995 discusses Configuration management, which for most organizations is just one element of a complete management system. A complete list of documents in the ISO 9000 family is maintained here

To the casual reader, it is usually sufficient to understand that when an organization claims to be "ISO 9000 compliant", it means they conform to ISO 9001.

However, even ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) itself is critical of the widespread emphasis on certification to ISO 9001 : "The emphasis on certification tends to overshadow the fact that there is an entire family of ISO 9000 standards ... organizations stand to obtain the greatest value when the standards in the new core series are used in an integrated manner, both with each other and with the other standards making up the ISO 9000 family as a whole". Get the best of out of the ISO 9000 family.