ISO has published ISO/TS 9002:2016 – Quality management systems – Guidelines for the application of ISO 9001:2015. This document acts as a companion to ISO 9001:2015 – Quality management systems – Requirements, supplementing its requirements with recommended guidelines on how organizations can expect to meet the standard’s expected results in a realistic manner.
ISO 9001:2015 is the current edition of the official international standard for quality management system requirements. It allows for any organization to implement a system by which it can demonstrate its ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer expectations and statutory or regulatory requirements.
ISO 9001 certification is extremely advantageous for many organizations, as it indicates to their clients and other interested parties that they meet the current benchmark for quality. In 2015 alone, there were over 1 million ISO 9001 certificates issued, demonstrating a widespread recognition of this standard’s importance.
However, ISO 9001:2015 was written with generic requirements which can be objectively audited or evaluated. To strengthen these requirements, ISO/TS 9002:2016 is composed of examples, descriptions, and options that aid in fulfilling their stipulations. All additional information addressed in this technical specification (TS) serves as a collection of recommended guidelines, and it is not intended to supersede the content of the quality management standard, but to support it, if applicable.
For example, in the early stages of the implementation of a quality management system, any organization should consider its context, with internal and external issues influencing its need for quality. ISO/TS 9002:2016 identifies many potential issues that an organization could consider.
These include: external – economic factors (money exchange rates, inflation forecast), social factors (local unemployment rates, education levels), political factors (political stability, international trade agreements), and technological factors (new sector technology, patent expirations); internal – overall organization performance, resource factors (infrastructure, organizational knowledge), human aspects (competency, behavior), and operational factors (production, service provision capabilities).
Similarly, ISO/TS 9002:2016 quality management application guidelines address the clause in ISO 9001:2015 that calls for organizations to “understand the needs and expectations of interested parties”. The technical specification lists many interested parties that the organization may want to consider, such as customers, unions, external providers, parent and subsidiary organizations, and competitors. This, as with considering the context of the organization, can help to determine the scope of the quality management system.
ISO/TS 9002:2016 also includes information necessary for applying some of the updates made to ISO 9001:2015. The role of top leadership in executing the quality management system was heavily emphasized in the latest revision of the quality management standard, and the technical specification addresses several ways in which this can come to realization, including taking clear accountability, monitoring the current and projected workload and schedules, and engaging and directing individuals in the organization in carrying out tasks relevant to quality management systems.
These three examples are only a slight glimpse into the total options described in ISO/TS 9002:2016. Overall, this technical specification walks the user through the majority of the content in ISO 9001:2015, listing a large breadth of applications for each section of the original quality management document. This allows users of both 9001 and 9002 to adhere to the international standard while tailoring it for their own use.
Both ISO 9001:2015 – Quality management systems – Requirements and ISO/TS 9002:2016 – Quality management systems – Guidelines for the application of ISO 9001:2015 are available on the ANSI Webstore.
