What is the ISO?

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards

bodies.

ISO is a nongovernmental organization that comprises standards bodies from more than 160 countries,
with one standards body representing each member country. For example, the American National
Standards Institute represents the United States.

ISO members are national standards organizations that collaborate in the development and promotion
of international standards for technology, scientific testing processes, working conditions, societal
issues and more. ISO and its members then sell documents detailing these standards.

The ISO's General Assembly is its decision-making body. It consists of representatives from the
members and elected leaders called principal officers. The organization has its headquarters in Geneva,
Switzerland, where a central secretariat oversees operations.

History of ISO

ISO is the successor to the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA),
which operated from 1928 to 1942.

In 1946, after World War II, ISA members and the United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee
held a meeting on international standards. Their work led to the formation of ISO as a nongovernmental
organization the following year.

ISO published its first standard, ISO/R 1:1951 (Standard Reference Temperature for Industrial Length
Measurements), in 1951. The standard is now known as ISO 1:2016. As of 2021, ISO had published
more than 24,000 standards.

According to ISO, ISO is not an abbreviation. It is a word, derived from the Greek isos, meaning
"equal," which is the root for the prefix iso- that occurs in a host of terms, such as isometric (of equal
measure or dimensions) and isonomy (equality of laws, or of people before the law). The name ISO is
used around the world to denote the organization, thus avoiding the assortment of abbreviations that
would result from the translation of "International Organization for Standardization" into the different
national languages of members. Whatever the country, the short form of the organization's name is
always ISO.
What are popular ISO standards?

Some of the most popular ISO standards include the following:

 ISO/IEC 27000. These security standards define a six-step process for developing and
implementing information security policies and processes.

 ISO/IEC 17799. This security management standard specifies more than 100 best practices for
business continuity, access control, asset management and more.

 ISO/IEC 20000. This ISO standard creates a technical specification and codifies best practices
for IT service management.

 ISO/IEC 12207. This ISO standard creates a consistent lifecycle management process for all
software.

 ISO 9000. This family of standards defines how organizations can establish and maintain effective
quality assurance systems for manufacturing and service industries.

How are ISO standards developed?

The International Organization for Standardization has a six-stage process for developing standards.
The stages include the following:

 Proposal stage. The first step in developing a new standard starts when industry associations or
consumer groups make a request. The relevant ISO committee determines whether a new standard
is indeed required.

 Preparatory stage. A working group is set up to prepare a working draft of the new standard. The
working group is composed of subject matter experts and industry stakeholders; when the draft is
deemed satisfactory, the working group's parent committee decides which stage occurs next.

 Committee stage. This is an optional stage during which members of the parent committee review
and comment on the draft standard. When the committee reaches consensus on the technical
content of the draft, it can move to the next stage.

 Enquiry stage. The draft standard at this stage is called a Draft International Standard (DIS). It is
distributed to ISO members for comments and, ultimately, a vote. If the DIS is approved at this
stage without any technical changes, ISO publishes it as a standard. If not, it moves to the approval
stage.
 Approval stage. The draft standard is submitted as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) to
ISO members. They vote to approve the new standard.

 Publication stage. If ISO members approve the new standard, the FDIS is published as an official
international standard.

ISO participating members vote on standards approvals. A standard must receive affirmative votes
from at least two-thirds of participating members and negative votes from no more than one fourth of
participating members.

What is ISO certification?

As it relates to ISO standards, certification is a certifying body's assurance that a service, product or
system meets the requirements of the standard. While ISO develops the standards, third-party
certification bodies certify conformity with those standards.

According to the ISO, the phrase "ISO certification" should never be used to indicate that a product or
system has been certified by a certification body as conforming to an ISO standard. Instead, ISO
suggests referring to certified products or systems using the full identification of the ISO standard.

For example, instead of "ISO certified", ISO recommends using the phrase "ISO 9001:2015 certified."
This fully identifies the standard being certified, including the version -- in this case, the version of ISO
9001 released in 2015.

While ISO does not do certifications, its Committee on Conformity Assessment works on standards
related to the certification process.

How do businesses become ISO certified?

The process of getting certified for an ISO standard can be expensive, time-consuming and potentially
disruptive to the business. Before taking any steps to get certified, determining the need for certification
can be the most important step.

The first step in becoming certified is determining whether certification is worth the costs. Some
reasons that organizations pursue certifications include the following:
 Regulatory requirements. Some businesses and products require certification that they meet
common standards.

 Commercial standards. When certification is not a regulatory requirement, products and services
that are certified to meet minimum standards are a necessity for some industries.

 Customer requirements. Even where there is an industry standard or regulatory requirement for
certification, some customers such as government agencies, may prefer or require certification.

 Improved consistency. Certification can help large organizations deliver consistent quality
assurance across business units as well as across international borders.

 Customer satisfaction. Enterprise customers that use a product or service in different contexts and
countries appreciate consistent performance. Compliance with standards can also help the certified
organization resolve customer issues.

The certification process for ISO standards varies, depending on the standard and the certifying body.
For popular standards, organizations may need to first review and select a suitable certification body.
Recommendations for the steps to follow to get certified in the ISO's quality management standard, ISO
9001:2015, include the following:

 understand the ISO standard;

 identify trouble areas, where operations do not meet ISO requirements;

 formally document processes, procedures and plans to improve trouble areas;

 implement ISO standards;

 conduct an internal audit to check conformance with the standard before the official audit; and

 Undergo formal compliance audit or certification process.

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA)

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) is an award established by the U.S.
Congress in 1987 to raise awareness of quality management and recognize U.S. companies that have
implemented successful quality management systems. The award is the nation's highest presidential
honor for performance excellence.

Three MBNQA awards can be given annually in six categories:

 Manufacturing
 Service Company
 Small Business
 Education
 Healthcare
 Non-profit

The education and healthcare categories were added in 1999, while the government and non-profit
categories were added in 2007.

The MBNQA award is named after the late Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige, a proponent of
quality management. The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and
Technology manages the award, and ASQ administers it.

THE SEVEN MBNQA CRITERIA CATEGORIES

Organizations that apply for the MBNQA are judged by an independent board of examiners. Recipients
are selected based on achievement and improvement in seven areas, known as the Baldrige Criteria for
Performance Excellence:

1. Leadership: How upper management leads the organization, and how the organization leads within
the community.
2. Strategy: How the organization establishes and plans to implement strategic directions.
3. Customers: How the organization builds and maintains strong, lasting relationships with customers.
4. Measurement, analysis, and knowledge management: How the organization uses data to support
key processes and manage performance.
5. Workforce: How the organization empowers and involves its workforce.
6. Operations: How the organization designs, manages, and improves key processes.
7. Results: How the organization performs in terms of customer satisfaction, finances, human
resources, supplier and partner performance, operations, governance and social responsibility, and
how the organization compares to its competitors.

The 2021-2022 Baldrige Excellence Framework is available for the business/nonprofit industries.
The 2019-2020 Baldrige Excellence Framework is available for the business/nonprofit, healthcare, and
education industries. The criteria focuses on managing all components of an organization as a whole,
cyber security risks, and understanding the role of risk management within a systems perspective of
organizational performance management.

European Foundation for Quality Management

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) was founded in 1988 and is committed to
promoting quality as the fundamental process for continuous improvement within a business. It is
dedicated to stimulating and assisting management in applying innovative principles of Total Quality
Management suited to the European environment. Its aim is to improve the competitiveness of
European private and public sector organisations. Over 10,000 firms in the private and public sector all
over Europe now incorporate the EFQM Excellence Model in their overall corporate management
process. In 1999, 60% of the top 25 companies in Europe (and 30% of the top 100) were members of
the EFQM. This paper focuses on establishing the rationale for implementing the EFQM model.

EFQM Framework
The EFQM Model's strategy orientation, along with its emphasis on operational performance and
results orientation, makes it the perfect foundation for evaluating the coherence and alignment of an
organisation's future goals in relation to its existing working practices and its solutions to problems and
challenges. The EFQM Model structure is built on the straightforward but effective logic of posing the
following three questions:

 "Why" does this company exist? What function does it serve? Why choose this specific strategy?
(Direction).
 "How" does it plan to fulfil its purpose and implement its strategy? (Execution).
 "What" exactly has it accomplished thus far? Tomorrow, "What" does it hope to accomplish?
(Results).