I have long maintained that renumbering procedures from the defunct ISO 9001:1994 standard to reflect the numerical scheme of ISO 9001:2000 is an exercise of questionable value. After all, aren’t they just numbers? What difference can it possibly make if your purchasing procedure is numbered 4.6 or 7.4? While I still haven’t changed my opinion, recent conversations with clients have led me to concede that I have perhaps underestimated the significance that others place on the ISO clause numbers.It seemed to me that companies (especially those registered to ISO 9001:1994) already had a grasp on the requirements of the standard. Most of the requirements are really just formalized, codified good practices embedded into a generic matrix—things like purchasing, order processing, resources management and whatever activities an organization develops to bring their product (including service) to market. The clause numbers are the construct in which they are arranged. The 2000 version of ISO 9001 does a much more creditable job of arranging them logically than its predecessors did.

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