| The
following questions are the typical questions that people ask, if you
have additional questions please pose your question on the Contact
Us page and we will answer your question. |
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What is ISO?
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What is ISO
9000?
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What are the changes in ISO 9001:2008 Standards?
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What are Eight
Management Principles?
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Can companies get
registered to all ISO 9000 standards?
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What
is the advantage of implementing an ISO 9001 program?
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What is ISO
14001?
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What is ISO
13485?
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What is ISO 17025?
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What is ISO
16949?
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What is ISO 22000?
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What is
AS 9100?
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What is OHSAS
18001?
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How much does it cost?
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How long will it take?
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What resources do I
have to allocate?
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How do I select a
consultant?
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How do I select an
auditor?
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How
do I keep current with ISO 9000 developments?
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Where
do I find information on ISO registered companies?
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Where do I buy
quality related standards from?
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What
is registrar accreditation?
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What
is the Scope of Accreditation?
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Where
can I use the ISO logo?
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What
is the difference between "Certification",
"Registration" and "Accreditation"?
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Can
consulting companies perform audits?
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What is Six Sigma?
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What is Lean Manufacturing?
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What
is ISO?
ISO stands for International
Standardization Organization also preferably referred to as equal or
uniform as "isos", the Greek word meaning equal. For
frequently asked questions on ISO 9001 check:
ISO organization FAQ Standard
Council of Canada FAQ ISO
Structure |
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What is ISO
9000?
ISO 9000 series of standards
consists of three set of documents:
ISO 9000:2000 - Fundamentals
and Vocabulary. Provides an introduction to Quality Management System
ISO 9001:2000 - Quality
Management Systems Requirements. Specifies requirements for
implementation of the QMS to international standards requirements for
quality management.
ISO 9004:2000 - Guidelines
for performance improvement. Provides guidance to further enhance
customer satisfaction. Also check:
BSI
What is ISO 9001:2000  DNV
What is ISO 9001 and Should I Care? |
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What
are the changes in ISO 9001:2008 Standards?
The new ISO
9001:208 standard is at final draft stage and is submitted for review
and approval by the ISO membership and is expected for release in
October-November 2008.
The proposed
draft does not introduce additional requirements compare to the last
edition in 2000 and does not change the intent of ISO 9001:2000.
For detail on
the status of the changes check:
ISO
organization News 2008 |
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What
are Eight Management Principles?
ISO 9000:2000
is based on eight management principles that are derived from the
collective experience and knowledge of the international experts who
participate in ISO Technical Committee, which is responsible for
developing and maintaining the ISO 9000 standards.
The eight
principles are as follows:
1- Customer
focus
2- Leadership
3-
Involvement
of people
4- Process
approach
5- System
approach to management
6- Continual
improvement
7- Factual
approach to decision making
8- Mutually
beneficial supplier relationships
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Can companies get
registered to all ISO 9000 standards?
No companies can only
register to ISO 9001:2000 and the other two standards are developed for
information and guidance.
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What
is the advantage of implementing an ISO 9001 program?
There are many
internal as well as external advantages in implementing an ISO program.
See the research conducted by BSI on
this topic.
ISO
9001 Case Studies.
ISO
survey Tenth cycle
ISO
survey 2002
ISO
survey 2003
ISO
survey 2004
ISO
survey 2005
ISO
survey 2006
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What is ISO
14001?
ISO 14001 is standard for
environmental management system.
ISO 14000 is a
series of international, voluntary environmental management standards.
The ISO 14000 series of standards effectively address the needs of
organizations worldwide by providing a common framework for managing
environmental issues.
For
information on ISO 14000 check:
ISO
organization's website BSI
What is ISO 14001 (pdf) Evironmental
Law Institute ISO
14000 info Board
of Environmental, Health & Safety Auditor Certifications PWC ISO 14001,
Assessment (pdf) Top |
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What is ISO
13485?
ISO 13485 is a standard for
particular application of ISO 9000 standards for medical devices.
For
information on ISO 13485 check:
Health
Canada website. BSI
What is ISO 13485:2003 (pdf) SCC
Transition to ISO 13485:2003 List
of ISO 13485 registrars recognized by Health Canada |
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What is ISO
17025?
Formerly known
as Guide 25, ISO 17025 is a standard for General Requirements for the
Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories. Guide 25 was
published in 1990 as internationally agreed set of quality system
requirements applicable to laboratories who perform calibration and/or
testing services. It was superseded in early 2000 by ISO/IEC 17025 which
will form the basis for laboratory accreditation in the future.
For
information on ISO 17025 check: SCC
Information on ISO/IEC 17025 SCC
Transition from ISO/IEC 17025:1999 to ISO/IEC 17025:2005 SCC
Proficiency Testing by Interlaboratory Comparision ISO
17025 Frequently Asked Questions |
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What is ISO
16949?
ISO 16949 is a standard for
Particular Requirements for the Application of ISO 9001:2000 for
Automotive Production and Relevant Service Part Organizations.
For
information on ISO 16949 check: BSI
ISO 16949 FAQs BSI
Benefit of ISO 16949 Case Study
AIGA
website
ISO
organization's website
BSI
Comparison of Requirements (pdf)
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What is
ISO 22000?
ISO
22000 specifies the requirements for a food safety management system in
the food chain where an organization needs to demonstrate its ability to
control food safety hazards in order to provide consistently safe
end-products that meet both the requirements agreed with the customer
and those applicable to food safety regulations.
The standard
combines generally recognized key elements to ensure food safety along
the food chain including interactive communication, system management,
control of food safety hazards through pre-requisite programmers and
HACCP plans and continual improvement and updating of the management
system.
BSI
What is ISO 22000 (pdf) |
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What is
AS 9100?
AS 9100 is the
latest standard replacing AS9000, for
Particular Requirements for the Application of ISO 9001:2000 for
Aerospace industries. AS9000
and AS9100 were developed by the
Americas
Aerospace Quality Group (AAQG), a committee of the Society of
Automotive Engineers (SAE) International. AS9000 is the original
version; AS9100 is a more recent and more internationally compatible
version developed by the International
Aerospace Quality Group and adopted by AAQG. Both standards apply to
organizations that supply parts and services to the aerospace industry.
(from SCC website) For
information on as 9100 check: BSI
What is AS 9100 (pdf) |
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What is OHSAS
18001?
OHSAS 18001, Is equivalent to
ISO standards for Occupational health and safety management systems.
For
information on OHSAS 18000 check: BSI
OHSAS Advantage video
BSI
Global website BSI
What is OHSAS 18001 (pdf) BSI
Health & Safety Management System (pdf) Canada
Safety Council Canadian
Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Centers
for Disease Control & Prevention Top |
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How much does it cost? Cost
of development and implementation of any quality management system is
dependent on the size, complexity, and the current status of the
management system. The cost
consists of: cost of system development (either by internal resources or
consultant), cost of implementation, cost of making required changes,
and cost of auditing. For
cost of consulting please fill in the attached Quote
form and we will
provide you with a firm quote. How long will it take? For
a medium size company, typically between nine months to a year, don't
forget that the purpose is making radical changes in the culture of the
organization and there is no advantage in quick fixes and
superficial implementation of the program. |
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What resources do I
have to allocate? You need
to assign a management representative to oversee the effectiveness of
the program, and the role of the departments will be to participate in
development and maintenance of the system. |
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How
do I keep current with ISO 9000 developments?
It is important for quality practitioners
to maintain current at all times on the development of ISO standards.
The best place to keep pace with the development of ISO standards is to
visit the following websites:
ISO
Website
ISO
Survey, (pdf)
American
Society for Quality (ASQ)
Standard
Council of Canada (SCC) Website
American
National Standards Institute (ANSI)
ANSI
ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB)
ISO
Technical Committee 176
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Where
do I find information on ISO registered companies?
One of the
sources on the web
to find out about ISO registered companies is Quality Digest, you can access
Quality Digest at www.qualitydigest.com
and the ISO database. |
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Where
do I buy quality related standards from?
Most quality
related standards can be purchased from the following on-line stores.
StandardsStore.ca
Canadian
Standards Association
American
Society for Quality |
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What
is Registrar Accreditation?
Accreditation is given to
registrars by the National Standards organizations (accreditation
bodies) that are member of ISO organization. Registrars gain accreditation after a rigorous assessment of their
practices by the accreditation bodies. Some registrars have one
accreditation and some have many. Also see
Assessing quality value.
Multinational
Certification Bodies Accreditation
Bodies SCC
Accredited Clients (ISO 9000 & 14000) SCC
Transition to ISO 13485:2003 ANAB
Accreduted Certification Bodies (CB) What
is the Scope of Accreditation? Scope
of accreditation is areas of expertise that the registrar has
demonstrated confidence that the required qualification as required by
the accreditation body has been achieved for conducting management
system audit. Check
the links in "What is registrar accreditation?", and: Scope
of certification, ISO Top Where
can I use the ISO logo?
Once
you are registered to any of the ISO standards you can use the logo to
promote your business, there are regulations in the use of logo and
should always confer with your certification body for permission to use
its logo. For more information see ISO
guidelines for the use of Logo.
What
is the difference between "Certification",
"Registration" and "Accreditation"? According
to the standardized definitions, they are not quite the same thing. In
the context of ISO 9001:2000 or ISO 14001:2004, “certification”
refers to the issuing of written assurance (the certificate) by an
independent external body that has audited your management system and
verified that it conforms to the requirements specified in the standard.
“Registration” means that the auditing body then records your
certification in its client register. In the ISO 9001:2000 and ISO
14001:2004 contexts, "certified" and "registered"
are equivalent in meaning and you can use either term. (from ISO website
"Publicizing your certification) Publicizing
your certification Top |
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Can
consulting companies perform audits?
Because of the
independency of Quality System Audits, the consultant that has assisted
the organization in development of the Quality Management system can not
perform Registration Audit, however, internal audits
can be performed by the consultant.
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What
is Six Sigma?
Six Sigma
stands for Six Standard Deviations from the mean which implies to a
system that will produce less than 3.4 defects per million.
In practical terms Six Sigma is a methodology that provides the
techniques and tools to improve the capability and reduce the number of
defects or opportunities for defects within a process. What
is Six Sigma methodology? |
What
is Lean Manufacturing?
A philosophy of
production that emphasizes the minimization of the amount of all the
resources (including time) used in the various activities of the
enterprise. It involves identifying and eliminating non-value-adding
activities in design, production, supply chain management, and dealing
with the customers. Lean producers employ teams of multiskilled workers at
all levels of the organization and use highly flexible, increasingly
automated machines to produce volumes of products in potentially enormous
variety. It contains a set of principles and practices to reduce cost
through the relentless removal of waste and through the simplification of
all manufacturing and support processes. Source http://www.apics.org/
See our
partner's website Mfg.
Matters for Lean Consulting by Dennis Hobbs the author of Lean
Manufacturing Implementation
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