Introduction to ISO 9001:2015 QMS Standard And Its Latest Version

Management System:

A management system is system which is designed to run a company. It is a set of policies and procedures which are designed and documented to run a company.

Why we need a “management system”?

Imagine you are going to a hotel. You entered from the main gate, go to the counter and order your food, pay for it and hold the tray and come and sit on your desk. The next day you go there and you are asked to use the back door, this time you are asked to not approach to counter but to sit on your table, the waiter will come at your desk for order taking. The next day you go there again and you are asked that today only those people are being served who have reserved the tables the previous day. And that’s it. I hope you will never visit them again.

Why? Because they are not systematic, they are working on trial and error basis, one day they are following some differ practice and other day they change again. It is obvious, they don’t have a “system of work” or we can say they don’t have any “management system”.

For a business to smoothly run, you need a “management system”! Period.

What is quality management system?

Now that we have understood the term “management system”, let’s move on to understand the meaning of quality management system which is also called QMS.

But before understanding QMS first understand the definition of quality!

Quality means “fulfilling the requirements of customers”. Alternatively quality is also defined as “fit for use “OR “fit for intended use” OR “satisfaction of the needs and expectation of customers”

So here we can say that, the quality management system means a “set of process and procedures which are designed such that to fulfil the customer requirements”

What is ISO 9001:2015?

ISO 9001:2015 standard is the international standard which describes the requirements in order to run a successful quality management system. ISO 9001:2015 standard is the fifth revision of the series, it was first issued in 1987 as ISO 9001:1987 since then it has been continuously updated and revised every 6 to 8 years and now 2015 revision is the current version.

When the next version will be released?

Many people ask me that if the ISO 9001:2020 is released? They ask this because ISO 9001 standard is bound to be updated every 5 years and right now more than 7 years passed since this version is released in 2015. However we still hope that this might happen this year or the next year!

Thanks for reading.