ABSTRACT

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) continues to develop industry-specific standards through Technical Committee 176 to avoid proliferation of individual standards throughout the world. The vision is to have a truly global marketplace by having an internationally accepted mechanism that everyone endorses. The ISO 9000 answers many of the quality deficiencies and irregularities that many organizations are forced to suffer. It establishes the foundations of a quality management system and provides a consistent quality management system for any organization committed to quality. The ISO standards are so fundamental to the overall quality that the ISO Committee is expanding its scope to specific industries through specific directives and guidelines. The directives have a focus to standardize the regulations across different countries where the guidelines provide hints and recommendations as to how to go about implementing the standard in a given organization.