ISO 9000 Series Revision Timeline


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The ISO 9000: 2000 series of standards is consistent of four main standards. These standards replaced more than 20 standards and documents. The four ISO 9000 standards are:

ISO 9000, Quality Management Systems - Fundamentals and Vocabulary
(replaced ISO 9000-1 and 8402)

ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems - Requirements
(replaced ISO 9001: 1994, 9002: 1994 and 9003: 1994

ISO 9004, Quality Management Systems - Guidelines for Performance Improvements
(replaced ISO 9004-1)

ISO 19011, Guidelines on Quality and/or Environmental Management Systems Auditing
(will replace ISO 10011-1, ISO 10011-2 and 10011-3, as well as the ISO 14010, 14011 and 14012 environmental auditing standards.)

The following are some of the key changes of the 2000 revision to the ISO 9000 series of standards:

Use of the process approach
More comprehensive standard, eliminating the need for multiple industry-specific standards
May be more easily adapted to any type and size of an organization
Focuses on the use of the quality system as a management tool
Documentation structure is not specified and may be structured as seems fit to the type of organization
More compatible with other standards, such as the ISO 14000 series of standards, allowing for integration of various management systems
Replaces the twenty element structure with five clauses containing 23 elements