What words would YOU add?

Last week I asked you what changes you would make to the ISO 9001 standard if it were up to you, and I described some of the suggestions I've heard from other people. But ISO 9001 doesn't sit in a vacuum. There is a whole constellation of related standards to consider as well. What about those? Would you like to update them too?

Let's look at a couple in particular. This week I want to ask about ISO 9000, Quality management systems – Fundamentals and vocabulary. Then next week I'll ask about ISO 19011, Guidelines for auditing management systems. In both cases, I'll tell you some of the things I've heard other people suggest, and I'll ask you to consider what changes YOU think are important.

So what about ISO 9000? This standard explains the "fundamentals" of quality management systems. This means it contains short descriptions (from a paragraph to a short essay) about the foundational concepts of quality—concepts like "customer focus" or "process approach"—and then it contains a long section of formal definitions. These definitions are then used across the whole family of related standards. As the Scope section of ISO 9000 states, "This International Standard specifies the terms and definitions that apply to all quality management and quality management system standards developed by ISO/TC 176."

So if we update ISO 9000, that means adding (or removing) concepts and definitions related to quality management systems. Therefore my question to you can be rephrased as, "What new concepts or definitions do you think we need to clarify or define in order to talk unambiguously about quality management systems? What new words do we need to add to the QMS dictionary?"

To be clear, there are no current plans to update ISO 9000. But that doesn't stop people from thinking about things they'd like to see. What follows are some of the suggestions I've heard from other people over the last few months. Meanwhile I'd like you to think about your own suggestions, and add them in the comments.

Adding new topics

Some of the words that I've heard suggested relate to topics that simply have not been addressed by quality management systems before now. Climate change is prominent on this list, of course. One person actually said it would be better to discuss climate change in ISO 9000 than in ISO 9001, because ISO 9000 could provide a conceptual explanation without having to get tangled up in specifying requirements for certification. (And of course most of the pushback related to discussions of climate change are tied to how certification requirements might change.) Another new term that came up in the same conversation was circular economy. Here the idea was that the concept of a circular economy can improve business performance once we reclassify anything thrown away—anywhere in the supply chain—as "waste."

The world's experience with COVID-19 prompted some other proposals, among them remote work and remote audit. Also, while the concept of a supply chain is not new, I've heard the idea that we should rethink how we approach it. In particular, one person said we should think about securing the supply chain. I think his exact words were, "Inventory is not always bad."

Emerging technologies inspired several proposed new concepts, including artificial intelligence and machine learning. In the same way, I heard several ideas for terms in the conceptual space around obsolescence. Rounding out the theme of change were suggestions like agility and demographic change.

Finally, I heard more than once the thought that ISO 9000 should clearly explain the concepts of ethics and integrity, along with organizational culture. Longtime readers may remember that I took up the question late last year whether the ISO 9000 family of standards needs a regulation about ethics, but the idea is ever-fresh.

Developing current topics

Then there were suggestions which did not so much propose new concepts, but asked for a fuller explanation of existing ones. Some of the concepts that I've heard people talk about include:

• Management system standard integration, since it is becoming ever more common for organizations to implement a single integrated management system that complies with multiple standards at once. (Commonly these include ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 45001.)
• Knowledge management, since the concept was introduced into the 2015 edition of ISO 9001 without much preparation or explanation. One person suggested that knowledge management could be combined with control of documents and records in a more general concept of access to information.
• Customer experience, as a more general category than customer satisfaction. After all, so the argument went, the absence of complaints doesn't necessarily mean the customer is happy. Someone else went even farther and said we should start to consider customer empathy.
• People aspects, as a broader category than performance management. The idea here was that if ISO 9000 takes seriously the concept engagement of people, then there are many angles to consider, relating (for example) to values as much as to objective working conditions.

Should ISO 9000 be updated at all?

Finally, some of the people I spoke to addressed the question whether ISO 9000 should be updated at all. Even here there was not universal agreement.

The arguments in favor of changing ISO 9000 were mostly straightforward. There are new concepts relevant to the implementation of quality management systems, there are new technologies that the standard has to account for, and there are concepts which have been inadequately clarified up till now. Other people pointed out that there have been discussions whether to make changes to ISO 9001, and any changes there will involve concepts that have to be reflected in ISO 9000.

But it was around this last idea that I also heard some voices of caution. After all, they pointed out, it is possible that ISO 9001 might not change. In that case, it would be risky to change ISO 9000, because new definitions might change the meaning of the ISO 9001 requirements even though the text itself remained untouched. Clearly users of the ISO 9001 standard would see such an outcome as (at best!) a dirty trick on the part of the committee, and so we should be careful not to let it happen.

 

So there are the suggestions I have heard for updating ISO 9000. Once again, now it's your turn. How would YOU update ISO 9000 if it were up to you?

Please leave a comment and let me know.