QUALITY STANDARDS

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) publishes International Standards.

ISO 9001:2000 is the latest standard for Quality management systems

The process approach stresses:

understanding and meeting requirements
the need to consider processes in terms of added value
obtaining results of process performance and effectiveness
continual improvement of processes based on objective measurement

These objectives are achieved through the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) methodology.

Plan: establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with customer requirements and the organization’s policies.
Do: implement the process.
Check: monitor and measure processes and product against policies, objectives and requirements for the product and report the results.
Act: take actions to continually improve process performance.

The ISO standard has broad applicability. Technical Specification (TS) 16949:2002 sets out the particular requirements for the application of ISO 9001:2000 for automotive production and relevant service part organizations.

The body of TS16949 contains boxed areas that are taken from ISO 9001 supplemented by unboxed areas that are specific to the automotive industry.

QS 9000, due to be phased out by 2006, is a North American standard founded on ISO 9001:1994 section 4. It is a harmonization of Chrysler’s Supplier Quality assurance Manual, Ford’s Q-!01 Quality System Standard, and General Motor’s NAO Targets for Excellence.