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March 2014

ISO 9001:2015 – Update to “Where Are We?”

The draft version of the new ISO 9001:2015 standard has been available for some time. Somewhere around 40% of the norm will be supplemented, modified, or changed, thus this is a “major” revision.
However, the final version is not yet available.
ISO 9001:2015 Timetable
The standard is updated and I modified in phases –
Initially, multiple drafts are made distributed and made available for review and comment. Feedback from industry experts and professionals is solicited and evaluated.
The result is that the standard takes some time and effort to be revised. In specific terms this means that at present the so-called “Committee Draft” has been published as a preliminary draft. The Committee’s timetable includes publication of the final standard in September 2015.
ISO 9001:2015 Transitional Period
There is to be a three-year transitional period. During this transitional period, organizations have time to adjust their management systems to the new standard.
New ISO 9001:2015 Structure
The new standard will include new classifications. In future there will be ten clauses. One major reason for this is because the current clause 8 (Measurement, Analysis and Improvement) will be broken down into two chapters.
Summary of New ISO 9001:2015 Content
The new ISO 9001:2015 standard will include some aspects of the current ISO 9004. As a result, the standard will be modernized and adjusted to embrace certain state-of-the-art management principles.
These include the following principles:

  1. Risk Analysis and Management – a company’s risk management plays a crucial role in the new standard. It permeates nearly every clause – from corporate planning, business processes, internal audits through to supplier management. Analyzing and managing risks is further linked to opportunities for company improvement. Please note though that formal risk management (e.g. according to ISO 31000) is not mandated.
  2. Stakeholders – effective corporate management can only be realized if the needs of all of the stakeholders can be identified, quantified and included.
  3. Process approach – Process management gets its own clause in the new standard. While the Process Approach is clearly embedded in both ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 9001:2008, it much more rigorously identified, defined, and mandated in the new ISO 9001:2015 version. Thus, it no longer only relates just to recognizing the workflows in the company, but now to managing the workflows in a more specific manner as well.
  4. Documentation – Documentation will become much more flexible. Records and documents will become so-called “documented information”.
  5. Knowledge Management – The requisite expertise has to be identified, recognized, obtained, secured, and passed on internally.
  6. Leadership – Corporate management responsibilities and tasks are significantly being expanded, with a particular emphasis on the mentoring function.

What’s Next for ISO 9001:2015?
The next stage (Draft International Standard) of the ISO 9001:2015 is scheduled to be published in April 2014. It is highly probable that the content will continue to evolve and be modified.
Please continue to visit Quality Resource Center to obtain the latest updates.

ISO 14001:2015 Update – Where Are We?

ISO 14001:2004 is being revised. The International Organization for Standardization working group responsible for revising the text has already met and has produced a draft which is now being circulated for comment to its member bodies.

Since the inception of ISO 14001, more than 300,000 organizations worldwide have implemented the standard, the market-leading certification-system for environmental-management systems.  Its’ popularity is the result of the continued efforts of the committee to revise, maintain, and update the standard, keeping it current relevant ecological, political and social developments.

As the previous revision dates back several years, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has  announced the next version for 2015 and recently provided an insight into the changes by publishing a so-called “Committee Draft“.

The latest draft of the revised ISO 14001:2015 is being circulated to ISO’s members for comment and the working group undertaking the revision met at the end of February to address the responses to this consultation. The output from that meeting will be a “Draft International Standard”, which will undergo a full public consultation in Q2 next year, with the resulting revised published in mid-2015.

ISO 14001:2015 will have a new structure and “common text”, following new ISO guidelines for all management systems standards. Furthermore, it will address the recommendations from the ISO “Future Challenges” study for the adoption of various new approaches and methods in the field of EMS.

The Future Challenges study recommended that consideration be given in the revision of ISO 14001 to the content of ISO 26000 – Guidance on Social Responsibility, which considers the environment as the “planet” element of the “People, Planet and Profit” model. Future Challenges suggests that 14001 should address the environmental principles in ISO 26000 and also consider aligning its language.

The four environmental themes considered in ISO 26000 are:

  1. Prevention of pollution (waste and emissions);
  2. Sustainable resource use (materials, energy and water consumption);
  3. Climate change and mitigation (GHG);
  4. Protection of the environment and restoration of natural habitats (ecosystems, biodiversity, land and natural resources, urban and rural development).

More to come as Quality Resource Center has identified the major changes, and we will be publishing another in the series of soon to help you understand the key aspects of this new revision.