ISO 9000-Quality Management

The ISO 9000 family of standards is related to quality management systems designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders while meeting statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product. The standards are published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and available through national standards bodies.

ISO 9000 deals with the fundamentals of quality management systems, including the eight management principles upon which the family of standards is based.ISO 9001 deals with the requirements that organizations wishing to meet the standard must fulfill.

Third-party certification bodies provide independent confirmation that organizations meet the requirements of ISO 9001. Over a million organizations worldwide are independently certified, making ISO 9001 one of the most widely used management tools in the world today. Despite widespread use, the ISO certification process has been criticized as being wasteful and not being useful for all organizations.

ISO 14000 - Environmental Management

The ISO 14000 family addresses various aspects of environmental management. It provides practical tools for companies and organizations looking to identify and control their environmental impact and constantly improve their environmental performance. ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2004 focus on environmental management systems. The other standards in the family focus on specific environmental aspects such as life cycle analysis, communication and auditing.