Focus on Sustained Success ISO 9004
Why the new focus on “sustained success? ISO 9004 is trying to answer the question, what is the purpose of quality? In 2000, the standard looked at customer requirements in the widest possible sense. Now with the 2009 rewrite, it is addressing why you should do that. The answer to this: to achieve sustained success for an organization over the long term.
Does the new direction of ISO 9004 indicate the future direction of ISO 9001? Quite possibly yes, ISO 9001 has to be written to provide consistent objective assessment across different organizations, but ISO 9004 calls for subjectivity. Wherever we can transfer the subjective advice in ISO 9004 into ISO 9001 in the future, it will probably be done.
For a small business to survive in the current economy, sustained success is a driving force that can sometimes determine whether or not an organization will survive. Although this standard is not intended for certification purposes, a strong business management consultant can assist an organization, which is already ISO 9001 certified, by coaching them on how to implement this standard.
