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SUMMARY
In the coming revision of the ISO 9000 standards, ISO 9002 and 9003 will be unified to ISO 9001.
One of the reasons that ISO 9003 is to be abolished is that the standard is hardly used in the registration of quality systems by third parties. It is true that there is little point in using ISO 9003 for the registration of quality systems.
However, ISO 9003 is a standard applicable when products are simple and final inspection and test are enough for a quality assurance program. This standard is applicable not in registration but in actual quality activities especially by small scale industries, which account for more than 80% of the total number of businesses around the world, and whose products are simple in many occasions.
It seems there is some confusion between the scope and the depth of quality systems. The level of an organization's quality management is determined by the appropriateness of the quality management elements included in its quality systems, their methods of implementation, and the thoroughness with which they are implemented. The fact that a company's quality management activities are broad in scope does not necessarily mean that they are at a high level.
KEY WORDS
ISO 9000 standards, level of quality management, proliferation
ON THE REVISION OF THE ISO 9000 STANDARDS
ISO Technical Committee ISO/TC 176 is currently working on a revision of the ISO 9000 standards to be completed in the year 2000. Although the committee's efforts are praiseworthy, it seems to me that it has embarked on the project without first clarifying what precisely is wrong with the present standards and what ought to be revised. The revision will abolish the present multilevel system, unifying ISO 9001, 9002 and 9003 to create a single standard, ISO 9001. ISO 9004 will remain, and will be packaged together with ISO 9001. I have some doubts about the wisdom of this approach, and I have made my views known on several occasions within TC 176's CSAG (Chairman's Strategic Advisory Group, an advisory body to the chairman of TC 176 made up of around 10 members of TC 176 including its subcommittee chairmen and secretaries).
One of the reasons given for abolishing the ISO 9001-9003...