ISO 9000 2000

ISO 9000 2000 is the new version of the ISO 9000:1994 series. It has been published and introduced in November 2000. There will be one standard - ISO 9001:2000 with guidelines for implementation to be the standard 9004. This site provides information about the updates to the standard and tips and hints on how to get the most from your quality system. After engaging a consultant and between us developing a set of best practices, we check that you do what you say, but then more importantly, you are now in a position to significantly improve, once the checks and balances are in place. Doing what you say you do is no longer enough, you must show how you plan and action improvements to you quality 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! In other words, 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 to 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:

• Prove your business focus is customer led
• Prove 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 ISO 9000 2000 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.

OK, I want to go to information about the new standard and tips about improving my systems from Activa Consulting

If you are currently certified against the 1994 standard, you will not be compelled to upgrade until November 2003 at the latest. From November this year however, certificates will have a validity of a maximum of three years. Upgrading does not mean a complete system rewrite, it does require however some serious application. If it was dead easy no one would want it would they? The ongoing improvement work with a skilled consultant is where the effort should be expended along with the external guidance from a superior certification body. You're going to have to do this anyway sometime - this is an opportunity to get a jump on the competition, do it properly and make more profits!

Activa consultants are glad to handle any queries you may have with reference to changes the quality standards. We are set up to be responsive to your queries via e-mail. We have experience in every industry sector between us from Land Mine Disposal to Local Government. (No correlation honestly!). We work from a position of strength in our knowledge of not just these quality standarsds, but can draw on a pool of other very relevant models with which to help you grow your business. These include Investors in People, Business Excellence (EFQM and TQM) and ISO14000. With these tools at our disposal, you are in good hands with Activa.

We work in very close association with a number of certification bodies, which allows us to be continuously improving our solutions and systems - just like you should be.

Activa Consulting has the mission statement of taking complex problems, simplifying them and them establishing systems to allow cost effective delivery to our clients. We now have systems in place for a number of models most importantly the quality series. Please surf the site, broaden your knowledge and see how Activa Consulting can help you and your company. Please register inside for our free monthly newsletter which we send out on the newest developments in the new standards coming along - there has just been an upgrade in Investors in People for example, and the final - final - draft of this standard is due any moment before publication in November time (ish). We also have a section where you can start to remove the paper in your office and let us manage your documentation for you - all online!

We welcome your visit to our site be it for infomation on quality standards, or to engage us within your own quality system project.