Ballot on options for the future of ISO 9001 opened on 28 June and will close on 28 July 2023.
The systematic review of ISO 9001:2015 closed in 2020 with the following results: 36 votes in favor of "confirmation" and 32 votes in favor of "revision or amendment”.
An ISO 9001 User Survey was also conducted in 2020 and returned similar results to the systematic review, with a small majority of participants indicating their preference to confirm the standard “unchanged”.
The standard was confirmed.
Because of the narrow margin of the result, it was agreed to start a project at the preliminary stage and task group ISO/TC 176/SC 2/ TG 5 was asked to identify whether there was evidence to support a decision to start a revision of the standard before its next planned systematic review.
TG 5 analyzed 13 sources of information, including the responses from the 2020 User Survey, and issued a report of their conclusions to the ISO/TC 176/ SC 2/AG 1 Strategic Planning and Operations Task Group (SPOTG) in March 2022. The TG 5 report recommended that although there was no single major driver for an early revision, the collective impact of the factors identified should be considered as they may support a revision before the next systematic review.
TG 5 was then invited to develop a draft “design specification” to support future work and offer SC2 members an understanding of the likely significance of a future revision of ISO 9001.
This task was completed in February 2023 and an ad-hoc SC 2 meeting was called to discuss potential benefits and concerns of a revision of the standard before the next Systematic Review. The draft Design Specification and the “Summarized factors relevant to the potential revision of ISO 9001:2015 before the next Systematic Review” document prepared by TG 5 were shared with SC 2 members in advance of the ad-hoc SC2 meeting on 17th May 2023 to facilitate discussions.
Outputs from the SC2 ad hoc meeting and other submissions from SC2 members were reviewed during a meeting of the ISO/TC 176/SC2/AG 1 Strategic Planning and Operations Task Group (SPOTG) on 30th May 2023 and a recommendation was made to issue a ballot to SC2 members on options for the future of ISO 9001.
The intention of the ballot is to recognize the impact of global changes since 2020 and offer SC2 member bodies a further opportunity to consider the potential benefits to user organizations, their customers, and communities of starting a revision to ISO 9001 before the next systematic review.