The International Organization for Standardization has published a new edition of ISO 9000, “Quality management systems—Fundamentals and vocabulary.”The updated version introduces no changes to the descriptions of the fundamentals of quality management systems, but instead defines the vocabulary and describes QMS fundamentals. Some definitions have been added and explanatory notes have been expanded to better align ISO 9000 with other documents in the ISO 9000 family of standards.

“The primary reason for this new edition is to provide a single unambiguous meaning of key words used in various management systems standards, in particular, ISO 9001:2000,” says Youssef El Gamal, chair of Subcommittee 1 of ISO TC 176. Examples of key words and phrases that are better defined in ISO 9000:2005 include: “technical expert,” “requirement,” “competence,” “contract,” “auditor,” “audit team,” “audit plan” and “audit scope.”

ISO 9000:2005 will be helpful for all users of ISO 9000 standards, in particular:

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