Definition Service Provision - ISO 9001:2000 Clause 7.5 - Meaning of Service Provision

Antonio Vieira

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Hi!

In ISO 9001:2000, requirement 7.5, what’s the meaning of service provision?
Is it referred only to post-delivery activities?

I believe that the standard has some serious mistakes in translation for Portuguese?
:(

Tks
AV
 

Stijloor

Leader
Super Moderator
Re: Meaning of service provision?

Hi!

In ISO 9001:2000, requirement 7.5, what’s the meaning of service provision?
Is it referred only to post-delivery activities?

I believe that the standard has some serious mistakes in translation for Portuguese?
:(

Tks
AV


Hello Antonio,

No, it's not the translation. It applies to the type of output the organization provides. Output can be either a product "hardware", a service, or both. Note that the term "product" can apply any output. This term "service provision" was introduced in 2000, when most of the manufacturing-type terminology was removed from the standard and to emphasize that "product" could be hardware, software, service, processed materials or whatever.

Hope this helps.

Stijloor.
 

AndyN

Moved On
Re: Meaning of service provision?

The '94 version of the standard included 'Servicing' under section 4.19, which was supposed to be a contractual agreement and it referenced the 4.9 requirements for 'Process Control'. It basically said, if you do product servicing, it needs to be controlled in the same manner as production does.

The inclusion of 'service provision' is the natural combination of two requirements, much as the TC did with Purchasing and verification of purchased product.............

Just that simple, really.
 

Antonio Vieira

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Re: Meaning of service provision?

In fact on version 2k of the standard we have the late 4.19 only stated in 7.5.1 f).

The only reason the title of requirement 7.5 has the words “service provision” is because in this case, "service" means post-delivery activities. Not anything related with a special type of product not tangible – a service. In Portuguese the word "service" doesn’t mean anything related to post-delivery activities

We can see that ISO wrote in chapter 3 of the standard “Throughout the text of this International Standard, wherever the term “product” occurs, it can also mean "service".
In order to avoid the necessity of having to write all the time the words product/service every time they want to refer to the product.

The translator in fact made a mistake. He considered service provision as the same as product realization, but for the special case the product is a service, when what ISO wanted, was that this "service provision" was related to post-delivery activities.
 

Paul Simpson

Trusted Information Resource
Re: Meaning of service provision?

The only reason the title of requirement 7.5 has the words “service provision” is because in this case, "service" means post-delivery activities. Not anything related with a special type of product not tangible – a service. In Portuguese the word "service" doesn’t mean anything related to post-delivery activities

We can see that ISO wrote in chapter 3 of the standard “Throughout the text of this International Standard, wherever the term “product” occurs, it can also mean "service".
In order to avoid the necessity of having to write all the time the words product/service every time they want to refer to the product.

The translator in fact made a mistake. He considered service provision as the same as product realization, but for the special case the product is a service, when what ISO wanted, was that this "service provision" was related to post-delivery activities.

Andy is right. In this case Service Provision means Providing a Service - not servicing as in earlier editions of ISO 9001.

When ISO first came out you had 9001, 9002 and 9003. The difference between 9002 and 9001 was two clauses - design control (4.4 from memory) and servicing (4.19 as Andy said). The logic of this is that - if you have designed a product you are best placed to provide the servicing when the product is in use (as only you will know what has to be done to maintain a product in its original (designed) state).

The reason "service provision" comes up in 7.5 (and all relevant sub clauses) is that - as you say in the intro - ISO talks about "product" and "service" being used interchangeably. This is fine until you get to the clause when you want to describe how product should be made and service provided. The (IMHO) awful term "product realization" has already been used to describe the whole process of planning (7.1), receiving customer information (7.2), designing (7.3), purchasing (7.4) so it is at this point (7.5) that you have to divide out making physical products and providing intangible services.

Please, please, please TC 176 come up with a better way of describing this - perhaps on the cove we can give them a push?
 
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