When started Geneva, in 1947, ISO International Organization for Standardization is to promote the development of standardization and related activities in the world with a view to facilitating the international exchange of goods and services, and to developing corporation in the spheres of intellectual, scientific, technological and economic activity. ISO’s works result in international agreements which are published as international standards.
During the Initial formation, nearly about 90 countries, national member bodies joined together to form this organization.
ISO has published more than 3000 standards addressing various sectors and fields. But inspite of the common product standards, industries were not able to maintain the consistency in output or the customers could not trust their supplier chain as there is no there was always an uncertain situation prevailed. To address this concern, based on the wide spread requisition for the PROCESS requirements ISO formed the technical committee TC 176 for this purpose and in the year 1987, committee came up with the draft standard of ISO 9000 series.
First certification started in the year 1994. ISO came up with the four different ISO standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 9002, ISO 9003 and ISO 9004. And Subsequent to that the standard underwent two revisions in the year 2000 and 2008 and we are in the third version of ISO. The latest version is known as ISO 9001:2008.
Getting Certified to any international standards means the organization is maintaining documented agreements containing technical specifications or precise criteria to be used consistently as rules, guidelines, or definitions of characteristics, to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose. As ISO standard insists that all process to be supported with document support, which ensures that the Organization has precisely planned for its PROCESSES and guides the staff concerned to carryout the task in a correct manner first time, every time. International Standards thus contribute to making life simpler, and to increasing the reliability and effectiveness of the goods and services we use and ultimately the entire supplier chain becomes more trust worthy than ealier.
Why the Business Need International Standardization
International standardization is now well established for many technologies in such diverse fields as information processing and communications, textiles, packaging, distribution of goods, energy production and utilization, shipbuilding, banking and financial services.Its qualifies an organization, which can be used to achieve the organization’s purpose, reduce non-value added activity and motivate the employees towards the quality product and service.
ISO standard has specified the requirements of business system and expectations of customers. By achieving ISO standards in business which gets globally recognized that encourage to win more business.
- Benefits Of International Standardization
- Implementing ISO often gives the following advantages.
- ISO clearly specify the requirement of business system.
- Create a more efficient, effective operation
- Increase customer satisfaction and retention
- Enhance marketing
- Improve employee motivation, awareness, and morale
- Promote international trade
- Increases profit
- Employees get educated on importance of quality and business system.
- Continual improvement in business process.
- Reduce waste and increases productivity.
New standards has emerged in all sectors with more specific requirements. iso standards such as iso 14001, iso 20000, iso 22000, iso 27001, iso 29001, iso 13485 iso/ts 16949 are some of the popular standards in the market. Of late, iso 50001 energy management has been launched by ISO to address the growing demands of energy requirements.
