The ISO 9000 Compendium – The top quality standards at a low price

The ISO-9000 Compendium 12th Edition is a real bargain in the world of standards.  You get a real cross-section of the important quality standards at a reasonable price.  Yes, it is only available in CD Rom format (Now in pdf format as well.)  But you will be able to review many more documents than you could otherwise.

Of course, there is one major problem with ordering any compilation of standards.  The documents may be revised individually while the compilation stays static.  This is certainly the case with the current issue of the ISO 9000 Compendium.  The final draft for the ISO-9004 has been approved and is now available as an authorized edition, rather than the draft included in the compendium.

So, if you need to be sure you’re meeting the ISO-9001 certification requirements but want to take a look at the balance of the collection just for informational purposes only, you may want to purchase the compendium.  Then, get notification service for the ISO-9001 document.  That way, you’ll find out right away when any changes are made to the document you use for certification.

Here’s the contents of the current  Twelveth Edition  (along with links to the current edition of each item as a solo purchase):

  • ISO 9000 : 2005 Quality management systems — Fundamentals and vocabulary
  • ISO 9001 : 2008 Quality management systems — Requirements (With Technical Corrigendum)
  • ISO 9004 : 2000 Quality management systems — Guidelines for performance improvements
  • ISO 10001 : 2007 Quality management systems — Customer Satisfaction — Guidelines for codes of conduct for organizations
  • ISO 10002 : 2004 Quality management systems — Customer Satisfaction — Guidelines for complaints handling in organizations
  • ISO 10003: 2007 Quality management systems — Customer Satisfaction — Guidelines for dispute resolution external to organizations
  • ISO 10005 : 2005 Quality management systems — Guidelines for quality plan
  • ISO 10006 : 2003 Quality management — Guidelines for quality management in projects
  • ISO 10007 : 2003 Quality management systems — Guidelines for configuration management
  • ISO 10012 : 2003 Measurement management systems — Requirements for measurement processes and measuring equipment
  • ISO/TR 10013 : 2001 Guidelines for quality management system documentation
  • ISO 10014 : 2006 Quality management — Guidelines for realizing financial and economic benefits (With Technical Corrigendum)
  • ISO 10015 : 1999 Quality management — Guidelines for training
  • ISO/TR 10017 : 2003 Guidance on statistical techniques for ISO 9001:2000
  • ISO 10019 : 2005 Guidelines for the selection of quality management system consultants and use of their services
  • ISO 19011 : 2002 Guidelines for quality and/or environmental management systems auditing
  • ISO/DIS 9004 Managing for the sustained success of an organization — A quality management approach

Attack of the Clones: Why are there so many versions of some ISO standards?

Here is a question I get asked all the time:  “Which standard should I use:  ASQ-Q9000, ISO-9000 or BS-EN-ISO-9000?”

And every day I look at the 2002 poster for World Standards Day with the tag line “One standard, One test, Accepted everywhere.”

So the question is, why are there so many editions of some ISO documents when our stated goal is to just have one?

To get to the bottom of this question, we’ll be talking about 3 concepts:  Jurisdiction, Adoption, and Translation.  When we get done, you’ll at least know the reason for the many “clones” of some of the most widely used ISO standards.

First of all, the concept of jurisdiction.  The ISO standards are meant to be International Standards, hence ISO, International Organization for Standardization.  However, there are other jurisdictions as well — Regional (like the European Union) and National (like the United States).

You might think that once an International Standard is published, everyone should be free to use it and that would be the end of the story.

But no — In the European Union, for example, regional standards are a response to legal regulation (the directives).  In order  to assure legal compliance to regional regulation and laws, EN standards are created as designated by applicable directives.

If an ISO document meets  the requirements of a particular directive, it can be adopted by the European Standards Body (CEN).  Then, it is published for public distribution by each country in Europe as the document is implemented.  That way, it is clear which countries are in compliance at any given time.

So, with the ISO-9000, EN adoption creates 27 differently numbered documents (like, BS-EN-ISO-9000, the official English language edition, DIN-EN-ISO-9000, the official German language edition, and so on), one for each country in the European Union.

ISO standards are also adopted by  countries as well as regions.  An example of this is the Canadian Standards Association document  CSA-ISO-9000.  In this case, the ISO-9000 is republished when Canada adopts the standard, at the national rather than  regional layer of jurisdiction.

One feature to pay attention to is the fact that the ISO standard will be reprinted in it’s entirety when adopted, but will have cover sheet administrative information as well in most cases.  This information may be about what national documents were withdrawn in favor of the ISO or EN adoption, or when the standard must be implemented by users.

And lastly, a country that is involved in the development of an ISO standard has the right to republish the document as a country-specific translation.  So, because ASQ (the American Society for Quality)  participates for the U.S.  in the Quality committee at ISO, the ASQ-Q9000 is the U.S. translation of the ISO-9000.  The U.S. translations are almost word-for-word identical to the English language ISO originals — the only difference is that the ISO standard uses British English spelling, and the U.S. uses American.  So if an ISO standard includes the word “colour” the U.S. translation would have the word spelled “color.”

So in 1992, there were 42 adoptions or translations of ISO-9000 in existence.  In 2002, 134 countries were issuing certificates of compliance and in 2007 there were 175 countries counted.

Our advice to customers is to use the highest level of jurisdiction whenever possible, because it will be revised first at the highest level.  So for the ISO-9000 standard series, ISO (the international jurisdiction) will be the first to issue technical content changes.  All adoptions and translations will happen after the initial ISO release.

However, sometimes there are reasons to choose other editions.  If cost is a factor, a national translation may often be the least expensive way to go, as all revenues go to the publishing organization only, as a way to cover the costs of committee participation.

Another reason to choose a different edition is to cater to either an important customer or a particular auditing body.  If your auditor is from BSI, you might choose the BS-EN-ISO-9000 series so that your auditor is impressed by your concern to follow the administrative information that is published in the adoption section of the publication.  If you do business in Australia, you might use the AS/NZS ISO 9000, the Australian/New Zealand joint adoption of the ISO standard.

This is always a hard concept for many people to understand.  If you’ve still got questions, please ask us by emailing us at info@document-center.com.

For our next blog, we’ll be looking at this same issue but from a different viewpoint.  I’m getting a lot of questions about why EN adoptions of ISO standards are coming out with new revisions when the ISO documents remain unchanged.  So, until next time…