Many of the international standards begin with the letters “ISO”, the abbreviation for the “International Organization for Standardization.”

ISO 9001 is a series of documents that define requirements for the Quality Management System Standard. ISO 9001 is one of the documents in this set; it contains the actual requirements an organization must be in compliance with to become ISO 9001 Registered.The most widely recognized standard is the ISO 9000 series, a basic quality management system that can be used in industries of any size, anywhere in the world. Registration to ISO 9001: 2015 (or other quality standard) provides objective proof that a business has implemented an effective quality management system, and that it satisfies all of the requirements of the applicable standard. An external, impartial expert called a registrar conducts an on-site audit to determine whether or not a company is in conformance to the standard. If they are found to be in conformance, they will be issued a certificate showing their address, scope of operations and the seals of the accreditation bodies that give the registrar its legitimacy.

The latest revision of the ISO 9000 standard was released in December 2015. ISO 9001: 2015 constitutes a major revision of the earlier 2008 standard. The ISO 9001:2008 documents were discontinued after September 2018, with ISO 9001 becoming the only auditable standard. ISO 9001:2015 was rewritten to better apply to all types of companies, not just large manufacturing concerns.