How to grow your company within a manageble framework using the new ISO 9000 2000. Understand the new implications, know when and how to help everyone involved improve.

Introduction to the new quality standard

9000 2000 is the new version of the ISO 9000:1994 series. It has been published and introduced in November 2000. There is only one standard - ISO 9000:2000 with additional guidelines for implementation. This site provides information about the updates to the standard and tips and hints on how to get the most from your system. This ISO system of continuous improvement is what makes good businesses from small ones, and great businesses from good ones.

The new 9000 standard is being welcomed with enthusiasm for the benefits it offers. Chief amongst these are the reductions in red tape and bureaucracy with a greater emphasis placed upon the control of processes not the documentation of them! The documentation will in the most part not need to exist, but we at Activa have successfully managed to build our systems in that kind of way for a number of years now. In this way, the standard is more friendly toward smaller businesses and those companies who provide a service and not a product. The new standard has been developed from a platform of eight management principles detailled below and it would be considered wise to follow these in order to fulfil the requirements:

• your business focus is customer led
• your "top managers" lead and involve themselves in quality issues
• your staff are aware of and involved in the meeting of business objectives
• you understand that all your internal processes are interlinked and affect each other
• these processes are managed as a whole business system
• you are committed to continual improvement of your quality system
• effectove decisions are taken on the basis of hard facts from real data not gut feel of hearsay and conjecture.
• your relationships with your suppliers are mutually benficial

Upon relfection, these are pretty much the conditions that any business would need to meet in order to be successful - irrespective of whether they happen to meet the requirements of the standard. These eight management principles provide a valuable framework on which to build quality and business systems.

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