Quest President, Peter Merrill has been a member of the ISO Technical Committee writing ISO 9001 standards for over 15 years. The standard can be used by any organization and is designed to enable delivery of both product and services more efficiently and more effectively.
ISO by Industry
ISO Industry Standards
The Greek Word ‘ISOS’
ISO is the ‘International Organisation for Standardisation’ and takes its name from the Greek word ‘isos’ which means ‘the same’ or ‘equal’. You probably recall the isosceles triangle from your school geometry. It has two sides which are equal in scale.
ISO was created in 1947 and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Its mission is the production of International Standards for the market place. The purpose of the mission is to enable organizations around the world to do business with each other more easily.
The organization was conceived from a simple but far reaching experience in World War II. Troops from North America arrived in Europe and found that ‘nuts and bolts’ the most basic of equipment from the two continents would not fit together. You can imagine the chaos that this caused!
ISO has developed into Management Systems
The early days of ISO involved standardising simple items like a roll of photographic film so that it would fit any camera. In the present day freight containers need standard dimensions to enable docking. The work of ISO has extended into activities such as management systems and ISO 9000.
The Quest president is deeply involved in ISO work and has both led and participated in the creation of standards on subjects such as ‘Quality management in Projects’, ‘Involvement of People in management Systems’ and ‘Management of Electoral Bodies’. He was a member of the communications group which took the ISO 9001:2015 standard and developed explanations to put it in simple terms for users.