Role of ISO 9004:2000 - Not Intended As Guidance For Compliance With ISO 9001

[Marc]

Subject: ISO Committee Draft 2 9001:2000 RE14
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 16:24:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Greg Gogates
Subject: ISO Committee Draft 2 9001:2000

If you read the Foreword to the CD2 of ISO 9004:2000, it tells you that it "gives guidance on all aspects of a quality management system, to improve an organization's overall performance, while ISO 9001 addresses the quality management system requirements for an organization to demonstrate its capability to meet customer requirements. ISO 9004 IS NOT INTENDED AS GUIDANCE FOR COMPLIANCE WITH ISO 9001." (Capitalization by me)

Patricia Hartman
Member, US TAG to TC 176

Nice to get some good news this bright Friday morning; “ISO 9004:2000 is not intended as guidance for compliance with ISO 9001”. It just shows the value of reading the small print. - Thanks to Patricia and to Mark for the information.
In ISO 9002:1994 , Annex A lists guidelines and carries the word (informative) in brackets. That, for me, meant that I didn’t have to buy them - we are registered to a standard, not to a guideline. Now, someone in ISO has spelled it out for us (should I say someone in a TC?) and that removes any concerns I had about possible disagreements with registrars, or having my future clients wondering why I know nothing about something so "obviously essential to their future".
I've expressed my opposition often enough to guidelines and guidelines to guidelines and interpretation in any form, so I don't want to get into all that again. Let's just say that it's nice to see it in print that the guideline is just an expensive training document.
(I made a list of guidelines that appeared relevant and costed them with NSAI. I've forgotten the figure but I believe it was on the wrong side of $400 - we'd do a lot better at the local library.)
John C

[Don Winton]

In ISO 9002:1994 , Annex A lists guidelines and carries the word (informative) in brackets...

Agreed, John. I have always seen these document as guidance, also. It gets under my skin when there are those that try to cite a guidance document as a compliance requirement. Guidance means just that, guidance. It is nice that the new standard spells this out, assuming it stays intact in the final document.

Regards,
Don

The kind QS folks have succeeded pretty well in taking former 'guidance' documents like the APQP and MSA manuals and made them auditable to a large degree. I look to more of the same in the iso world.

[Roger Eastin]

Lassitude - I am not sure I follow you on this one. Do you mean you expect ISO auditors to audit to the ISO9004 document eventually?

[Marc]

The MSA and APQP 'requirements' are, like QS-9000, customer requirements. I don't see this as an issue with ISO9004.

How about you folks? What's the role of ISO9004:2000?

[Qualiman]

I am trying to understand that big amount of info in the consistent pair.
Could be that being the 9001 the Requirements, the role of 9004 be a help to improve or going deeper in the application of 9001 ?. If you see , the 8 TQM principles are in the very first part of 9004 and it appears to be a copy (enhanced/zoomed) of 9001.
On the other hand I can't understand why the SC2 titled 9004 as "Guidance for performance improvement", mentioned in several pages the term "guidance", however in the third paragraph of 1 Scope establishes" This International Standard is not a guideline for implementing ISO 9001, and is not intended for certification, regulatory or contractual use"....???? Hence IT IS a GUIDE.Don't you agree ?
I would like to know another points of view from you folks

Nice to be here

Qualiman

Everything that I´ve been reading so far leaves no no doubt that 9004:2000 has been written to give guidance on the improvement of a quality management system to improve the overall performance of an organization. It is not a guideline for implementing ISO 9001:2000 and is not intended for certification or contractual use. This is very clear to me.