Learn About ISO

ISO History

The quality problem in the 1940s led to the first attempt at defining standards for inspection and quality systems, over the years NATO and MOD standards were developed.

From 1943 to 1946, the United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC) acted as an interim organization. In London, in 1946, the name of the body was finalized as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

The word ISO is adopted from the Greek word “ISOS“ which means (equal)

Building an International Standard

The first meeting of ISO was held in June 1947 in Zurich.

MOD Defense standard in the process of quality consciousness led to the AQAP-1 standard and 05/21 in 1973. In 1975 BS-5179 was produced by the British Standard Institution. This standard was issued in three parts (1, 2 & 3) describing the requirements and guidelines for the Defense Standard. Subsequently, a standard was needed that could be applied across a range of industries and embody a rationalized approach to third-party registration.

In 1979, the British Standard Institute published the BS 5750 series (parts 1-3) and in 1981 related guidance parts were released. Parts 1,2 and 3 of BS 5750 were used as the basis of the ISO-9000 series.

More than 40,000 standards have been developed for commercial and industrial use to cater to national and international quality problems.

In 1979, the Technical Committee ISO/TC 176 was formed. Despite some historical community in their heritage, various standards were not sufficiently consistent for widespread use as international requirements. The terminology used in the standards was also inconsistent and confusing.

ISO series 9000 (9000, 9001, 9002, 9003, and 9004-1) was published in 1987 along with terminology standard ISO-8402 Quality – Vocabulary. In the years 1994 and 2000, the ISO-9000 series was revised and updated. The goal of version 2000, published by an ad-hoc committee of ISO/TC 176, is to issue a single quality management standard.

In the year 2008, a new standard was issued as ISO 9001:2008.

Who uses ISO today?

In addition to commercial and industrial organizations, issued standards are used by:

Accreditation Bodies
Certification Bodies
Inspection Bodies
Training Organizations

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