ISO 9000 experts will meet in the Basque Country to begin the review of the world’s leading quality standard

The 50 reviewing professionals are set to hold a week-long meeting in Bilbao in mid-June. The entire review process will take place over the next two years. The decisions made concerning the ISO 9000 standard will affect the countries’ trade balance, as over a million companies and Institutions are certified with this standard in more than 150 countries worldwide. The meeting is organised by SPRI, the Department of Industry, Innovation, Trade and Tourism’s main public company.

Basque Government, 02/05/2012

The Technical Committee of the International Standards Organisation (ISO), which develops the world’s main quality standards, will be holding its first global meeting in the Basque Country to review the ISO 9001 Standard. The meeting will take place from 18 – 22 June in Bilbao at the central offices of SPRI (the Society for Competitive Transformation, the business agency of the Department of Industry, Innovation, Trade and Tourism) with the aim of developing and reviewing the ISO 9000 series of standards, their key documents and their dissemination strategy.

The group attending the June meeting in Bilbao will consist of 60 professionals, selected from over 100 countries making up the network of national standards organisations. A selection has been made, as attendance applications exceed the places available in this select group. The decisions made by the group will have a major economic impact and may affect the business capacities of the member countries, as the decision whether or not to include certain mandatory requirements can determine whether a company’s products and services are acceptable or not, for example, and it may also mean that some countries will no longer be able to purchase goods from others whose production costs are lower but are non-compliant with the standard. Direct participation in the working party is therefore decisive for some countries, and there are instances where the more dominant countries contract professionals to take part in the review group.

The ISO Secretariat is currently presided by the Canadian delegation through the Canadian Standards Organisation, and the group that will meet in Bilbao is presided by the BSI (British Standards Institute). The Spanish Standardisation Association (AENOR) will play an active part in the meeting. The participants do not have a full-time commitment, but are top-level decision-makers from companies and institutions.

The Bilbao meeting is the departure point for a review process that will last two years. A series of meetings will be held in different countries all over the world, and the electronic media will also be used.

ISO has developed more than 19,000 international standards since it was founded in 1947, and it issues 1,000 new regulatory approvals each year. ISO 9000, the best-known standard, has existed for 25 years and is complied with by over a million companies worldwide.

The Spanish Standardisation Organisation brings out more than 1,500 standards a year and works with over 30,000 UNE standards.

ISO

ISO, the International Organisation for Standardisation, issues and develops the greatest number of international standards and regulations. It consists of a network of national standardisation institutes in 163 countries, with one member per country, and a Central Secretariat in Geneva (Switzerland) that coordinates the system. ISO is a non-governmental organisation bridging the public and private sectors. Some of these institutes form part of their respective countries’ governmental structure, and others are private members made up of national consortiums of industrial associations.