ABSTRACT
There are three ways of using these standards: as a source of information on good practices that can be consulted to identify opportunities for improvement in business performance; as set of requirements and recommendations that are implemented by the organization and as criteria for assessing the capability of a management system or any of its component parts. This chapter addresses the pros and cons of either consulting, implementing or applying management system standards and in particular, the usefulness of the standards. The standards capture what may be regarded as good practice in a particular field. The information has been vetted by those deemed to be experts by ISO member states, and therefore one can defer to any of these standards as a legitimate authority in the absence of anything more appropriate. Changing a process simply to meet the requirements of a standard is absurd; there must be a real benefit to the organization.
