From: /presse/positive.htm
---------------snippo----------------
Positive vote on draft ISO 9000 revisions
The national standards institutes that make up ISO (International Organization for Standardization) have returned a positive vote on the Draft International Standard (DIS) versions of the ISO 9000 revisions currently being developed.
The documents – ISO 9000, ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 – will now undergo further revision before their release as Final Draft International Standards (FDIS) in September 2000 for a two-month ballot by ISO’s members. If that vote is positive, the ISO 9000 revisions will be published as fully fledged International Standards before the end of the year.
The ISO 9000 family of standards on quality management is the most successful of the more than 12700 standards developed by ISO. An estimated 350000 quality systems based on ISO 9000 standards have been implemented by organizations of all types in at least 150 countries.
All ISO standards are reviewed at least every five years to ensure that they remain at the state of the art. The current revision of the ISO 9000 standards is the second and the most thorough since they were first published in 1987.
The revisions are being carried by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 176, Quality management and quality assurance, in which national delegations of experts from 74 countries participate. Consensus among the experts is required on the revisions to the texts before the drafts can be elevated to the FDIS stage
ISO/TC 176 is now processing the comments that were submitted by ISO members along with their DIS votes. This work will continue at the committee’s meeting planned for 3-8 July in Kyoto, Japan, where agreement will be sought for elevation of the revised texts to FDIS status.
A considerable amount of information on the ISO 9000 revisions, including answers to Frequently Asked Questions and Transition Planning Guidance, is posted on ISO’s Web site:
www.iso.ch