ISO 9000 Overview

The ISO 9000 series of standards represent an international consensus on good management practices that apply to any industry or organization, whether manufacturing or service-based. The primary aim of the standards is to supply guidelines on what constitutes an effective quality management system that can serve as the framework for continuous improvement.

About ISO 9000
First published in 1987, the ISO 9000 standards have been adopted by more than 90 countries throughout the world. Business and industry leaders realize that to be competitive in the global marketplace, their companies must be world class. Quality must be reflected in products, services, practices, and procedures—quality that is maintained and improved.

Whether ISO 9000 compliance is driven by customer demand or marketplace trends, the ultimate goal is to build a quality management system that will support continuous improvement as well as integration with other business processes or regulatory requirements.

STAT-A-MATRIX has been assisting companies implement quality management systems since 1968. We were the first US based consultancy to provide ISO 9000 consulting in 1988.

In 1990, STAT-A-MATRIX became the first US based trainer to be registered by the IQA (IRCA predecessor) to train ISO 9000 lead auditors. In 1992 we were the first company accredited by the RAB (RABQSA predecessor) to offer Lead Auditor and Internal Auditor training.

Since 1990 we have been the largest ISO 9000 training and consulting firm in the world. We have trained over 100,000 auditors and assisted over 1,500 companies attain ISO 9000 registration. Our client range from a three-person distribution company, to the largest physical site to attain registration—the Panama Canal (80 miles in size for the registered entity). We have also helped 10 of the 12 NASA facilities attain registration.

ISO 9001:2008, the international quality standard, is scheduled for publication in the last quarter of 2008. This milestone follows the issuance of the Draft International Standard (DIS) in September 2007, comments on the DIS in May 2008, and the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) in July 2008.

We are currently updating all of our ISO 9001:2000 courses to reflect the changes, which are largely driven by the following key objectives:

To incorporate improvements resulting from examination of user requests for interpretation and clarification of ISO 9001:2000.
To provide clarification on several key requirements.
To improve consistency with the ISO 9000 family of standards.
To improve compatibility with ISO 14001:2004 (EMS).

Watch our website for additional updates on ISO 9001:2008 as well as related service offerings.

Click here for info on our ISO 9001: 2008 Update e-Learning course.

Please direct questions to customerservice@thesamgroup.com.

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