Dr. Isaac Sheps

Chair of the Central Committee for MS Standards, The Standards Institution of Israel, Ramat Hasharon, Israel

Dr. Isaac Sheps is a recognized expert on global management, leadership and quality management. For the last 25 years he has been a member of the international committee ISO/TC176, responsible for developing the ISO 9000 family of standards, member of the WG that developed ISO 9001:2015 and convener of the WG that developed ISO 9004:2018, and currently member of ISO/TMBG/JTCG-TF 14 responsible for the revision of the High-Level Structure for MSS. Author of numerous papers on managing for sustained success of an organization, quality management and productivity. Coauthor of the book ‘The Journey – Achieving sustained organizational success’ published in May 2019 by ASQ Quality Press.

As of 1st of Sep. 2016 Dr. Sheps is chair of the Israeli Standard Institute Central Committee for MS Standards.

Co-Speaker: John E. (Jack) West

Past Chair US TAG to TC 176 & Member of SC 2 WG on the QMPs, The Woodlands, TX, USA

Principal, John West Consulting, LLC, The Woodlands, TX, USA

Jack West is a co-editor of the ASQ ISO 9000:2000 Handbook, and co-author of ISO 9001:2000 Explained, ISO 9001:2000, An Audio Workshop and Master Slide Presentation, Cracking the Case of ISO 9001:2000 for Manufacturing, Cracking the Case of ISO 9001:2000 for Service, How to Audit the Process-Based QMS, all published by the American Society for Quality, and Unlocking the Power of Your QMS.

He also has produced the video programs on Internal Auditing Basics, Dealing with External Auditors, and Quality Basics published by INFORM and also available from ASQ.

He was the 2003 recipient of the ASQ's Freund Marquardt Award for his work related to standards.

Does ISO 9001 Fit for the Future – Is a Revision Required?

Does ISO 9001 fit for the future – is a revision required?

Dr. Isaac Sheps, John E. (Jack) West ISO 9001 was published more than 30 years ago (1987) by ISO TC176/SC2. During the years it passed 4 revisions (one of them a minor revision).

The current revision was published in 2015 with a few major changes; 10 requirement clauses, no required procedures, risk-based thinking introduced, and it was aligned to the Harmonized Structure published as part of ISO directives for all MSS’s. At the same time the QMP’s were revised, reduced from 8 to 7 and published in ISO 9000:2015.

According to ISO/IEC directive’s a MSS shall be subject to a systematic review every five years in order to determine whether it should be confirmed, revised, amended, converted to another form of document or withdrawn. Accordingly, a systematic review ballot was conducted between TC176/SC2 members. In the ballot closed on 2nd Dec. 2020 34 members voted to confirm 9001 as is and 31 members voted to amend.

As a result, by simple majority ISO 9001 was voted not to be revised. Since than TC176/SC2 experts continued to act with surveys, analysis, task groups and discussions on what should be the next time 9001 will be revised if at all. The main concern of the experts supporting a revision is the fact that even if a revision would be decided upon than in the best case it will be published in 2026 which means 11 years after the current version in a very fast changing context of the organizations. In this presentation we will try to answer the following question: ‘Does ISO 9001 fit for the future – is a revision required?’ To answer the question, we will use the underlying concept of the standard itself (and also of ISO 9004:2018) which sets the first step in applying a management system or changing an existing one, as defining and understanding the context of the organization.

The context of the organization in our case is the context of the standard itself, determining and analyzing the standards External issues (e.g., emerging themes related to QMS), Internal issues (e.g., clauses which were found since published as wrong/unclear or difficult to audit) and Interested parties (e.g., users views as expressed in surveys, ISO objectives related to MSS).

Based on the changes in the context of ISO 9001 pros and cons for a revision will be presented and the conclusion answer to the question of how fit is the current version of ISO 9001 to the future and what should be done about a revision of the standard. Note: The presenters were active members of the working groups that developed 9001 and 9004 (one of them co-convenor of the WG for the current version of 9004) and of the ad hoc group that developed the current 7 Quality management principles which are part of ISO 9000:2015.