London, Milwaukee and Sydney; IRCA and RABQSA International today announce the signing of a bilateral agreement that allows the mutual recognition of each others’ training course certifications.

Both organizations are engaging in a series of peer evaluations that will identify those certification products that are mutually acceptable. These, and others over time, will be added formally to a register of mutually accepted certificates that will be made publicly available.

IRCA director Simon Feary comments; “Training is now a global market and there are major advantages in aligning our certification products and making them mutually acceptable. The training organizations, the delegates and indeed everyone benefits”.

RABQSA’s CEO Mike Carmody agrees; “This is a positive and commonsense initiative of benefit to our respective stakeholders, customers and the industry in general. Auditor and training certification bodies and the whole certification industry is increasingly under pressure to add value. Aligning our products and accepting each other’s certifications is a

positive step in that direction.”

It is intended that the bilateral agreement will commence on completion of the first round of peer evaluations.

Source: RABQSA

An ISO/IEC International Standard aims to harmonize the various approaches used around the world for assessing the quality of e-learning initiatives.

"The standard represents the harmonized international know-how on quality for e-learning," explains Bruce Peoples, Chair of the ISO/IEC group that developed the standard. "By having comparable and commonly understood requirements and criteria, there will be a better match between the needs of users, purchasers and providers."

The acceptance of e-learning by the market is dependent on the quality of the related products, services and tools. A harmonized conception of e-learning quality is a prerequisite for a properly functioning market in e-learning products and services and for their overall quality to continually improve.

ISO/IEC 19796-1:2005, Information technology – Learning, education and training – Quality management, assurance and metrics – Part 1: General approach, provides an overall framework which can be used for introducing quality approaches in all provider and user organizations of e-learning. The standard will make it easier to compare and evaluate the relative merits of different initiatives.

The standard harmonizes the international conception of e-learning quality by creating a coherent inventory of the diverse processes which affect the attainment and preservation of e-learning quality. These processes embrace all e-learning application scenarios, such as content and tool creation, service provision, learning and education, monitoring and evaluation, and lifecycle stages – from continuous needs analysis to ongoing optimization.

According to Bruce Peoples: "The standard will reduce the cost and complexity of adopting quality approaches and, at the same time, bring new or improved products and services to the market. This will have the effect of enhancing the level of innovation, diversity of supply and procurement intelligence in the market."

ISO/IEC 19796-1 is the first part of an overall framework which is due to be developed over the next two years and that will include the following documents:

Source: International Organization for Standardization

ISO 19005, Document management - Electronic document file format for long-term preservation - Part 1, Use of PDF 1.4 (PDF.A-1), enables organizations to archive electronically in a way that will ensure the preservation of content and visual appearance over an extended period of time. It also allows documents to be retrieved and rendered with a consistent and predictable result, in the future, independent of the tools and systems used for creating, storing and rendering the files.

PDF is a digital format for representing documents. It has become the standard for the exchange and storage of data because of its significant amount of compression for document files. PDF files may be created natively in PDF form, converted from other electronic formats, or digitized from paper, microform or other hard copy format. Once created, the files must remain useable and accessible across multiple generations of technology. This is where ISO 19005 comes in.

Digital Library program manager at the Harvard University Library Stephan Abrams commented: "The publication of PDF/A will have a significant impact on the preservation of electronic documents by defining an internationally recognized standard format that is amenable to long-term preservation.

"The standard will allow libraries, archives, and other electronic resource consumers to encourage their content providers to produce and deliver those resources in a form that is optimized for their effective preservation over time."

It is estimated that the total size of the surface Web is 167 terabytes ( 1 terabyte is equivalent to the size of a large public library), 9.2 % of which consist of PDF documents. According to Susan Sullivan of the US National Archives and Records Administration, "PDF/A files will be more self-contained, self-describing, device-independent than generic PDF 1.4 files, and should allow information to be retained longer as PDF."

President of the international authority on Enterprise Content Management (ECM), John Mancini summed up the successful coordinated effort: "The speed with which PDF/A was developed is a testament to the commitment of the committee members worldwide. The collaborative effort put forth by representatives from the archival records management, government and other communities ensures that this standard will fit the needs of those communities."

Future parts of ISO 19005 will be created, which will provide compatibility with future versions of the underlying PDF specfication, while maintaining the current standard and applications based on PDF version 1.4.

Source: International Organization for Standardization

ISO today published revised, improved versions of its ISO 14001 and ISO 14004 standards and expects them to put the benefits of implementing an environmental management system (EMS) within the reach of an even greater number and variety of organizations worldwide.

"These standards represent the state of the art in environmental management practice," affirmed ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden, "and are at the leading edge of ISO's comprehensive offering to help organizations address all three dimensions of sustainable development - social, economic and environmental."

Oswald A. Dodds, who chairs ISO/TC 207/SC 1, the ISO technical group that developed the two standards, provided an executive summary of the improvements: "These revised versions take account of the considerable body of user experience since the standards were first published in 1996. ISO 14001:2004 is easier to understand and easier to use. The intent of its requirements has been made clearer, which will facilitate its translation and consistent implementation around the world. In addition, its compatibility with the ISO 9001:2000 standard for quality management systems, which is also used worldwide, has been increased.

"In turn, ISO 14004:2004 is more consistent and compatible with ISO 14001:2004, which will encourage their joint use and so enrich understanding of EMS. The language of ISO 14004 has also been made more accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises. As these make up the vast majority of businesses in the world, it is very much in everyone's interest that they too implement the good environmental management practices distilled in ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2004."

ISO 14001 is the standard against which an organization may have its EMS audited by an independent certification body that then vouches for the conformity of the system to the standard's requirements by issuing an "ISO 14001 certificate". Certification is not a requirement of the standard, but many organizations have chosen this option because of the perceived credibility of an independent verification. Up to the end of December 2003, at least 66 070 certificates to ISO 14001:1996 had been issued in 113 countries and economies, over 34% more than the previous year and the largest annual increase so far recorded by The ISO Survey.

Alan Bryden announced: "Although ISO itself does not carry out certification, we wish to ensure a smooth transition to ISO 14001:2004 for organizations currently certified to ISO 14001:1996. We have therefore been cooperating to develop a joint policy for the transition with the International Accreditation Forum." [The IAF is an international association that represents national accreditation bodies set up in many countries to verify the competence of certification bodies.]

ISO and the IAF have agreed to set the period for making the transition from certificates of conformity to ISO 14001:1996 to the ISO 14001:2004 version at 18 months from the publication date of the latter. Beyond this period, the IAF will recognize only certificates to ISO 14001:2004. The technical details of this 18-month transition policy, including instructions for certification bodies accredited by IAF members, are currently being balloted by the organization and are expected to be finalized in early December, when they will be announced in a joint ISO-IAF communiqué.

Delegations of experts from 61 countries participated actively in the development of ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2004 within Subcommittee (SC) 1 of ISO technical committee ISO/TC 207, Environmental management. Another 12 countries have observer status and 10 international organizations have liaison status.

The ISO/TC 207 Chair, Daniel Gagnier, commented: "Forward-looking business organizations need to commit to sustainable development as a strategic objective. That means implementing good environmental management practices, not polluting or depleting the environment, reducing waste and making efficient use of resources, and respecting the environmental concerns of customers, shareholders, employees, local communities, regulators and society as a whole. ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2004 provide a road map to this strategic objective."

Source: International Organization for Standardization

Companies are starting to peer below the surface of satisfaction surveys to take a more realistic measure of their customers. And it turns out customer satisfaction alone isn’t enough to win repeat business in most cases. Whether they’re dealing with fickle consumers or discriminating business-to-business buyers, marketers and vendors must earn customer loyalty not only through quality products and effective sales techniques, but also by building relationships and offering robust after-market support.

That is the conclusion of a survey by Walker Information Inc., an Indianapolis research and consulting firm specializing in customer loyalty and retention. Walker surveyed more than 2,200 information technology buyers and found customer satisfaction does not equal loyalty. More than 80% of purchasers said they were satisfied with their vendors, but less than half described themselves as truly loyal—that is, predisposed to placing their next order for servers, software, or networking gear from the same company.

“Earning loyalty means establishing a high level of relationship with the customer, so the customer will stick with your product and not look for an alternative,” says Jeff Marr, the Walker group vice president who led the survey. “It’s the entire brand experience that people look to when it comes time to make their next purchase. And that includes after-sales support as well as the core product offering.”

A more extensive Walker follow-up survey is due out next month. While the report has yet to be compiled, Marr describes some of the early findings as follows: “Loyalty is very achievable, but there are only a gold plated few who are achieving it. Early results show there is quite a range of performance in the minds of customers.”

While the Walker research was confined to the business arena, its lessons ring equally true in the consumer market, says Raj Sisodia, professor of marketing at Bentley College in Waltham, MA.

“Customer loyalty levels have been declining across most sectors,” Sisodia says. “In part, that’s because companies are spending a lot of resources trying to buy each other’s customers. That’s a vicious cycle. The better approach would be to make sure your own customers are bonded to you.

Many customers in the business and consumer fields have grown accustomed to short-term promotions and place a premium on saving money by pitting vendors against one another, Sisodia says. “These are the least valuable customers,” he suggests. “They cost you the most to acquire, and they won’t be around for very long. It’s only a matter of time until someone else makes them a better offer.”

As the economy shakes off its funk of recent years, businesses continue to spend reluctantly. That makes it all the more important for business-to-business vendors to nurture relationships by soliciting feedback and responding swiftly to problems. But many have attempted to burnish their products while outsourcing customer support in a cost-cutting gambit, Marr observed. The consequences of that approach were spelled out in the last Walker loyalty report.

“Some customers may feel trapped they’ll continue doing business with their vendors because they have to, not because they want to. A few may switch vendors at the drop of a hat despite being happy with their relationship. In the worst-case scenario, customers dislike their vendors and plan to move but the vendor is usually the last to know.”

Source: The Boston Globe

With much business now relying heavily on electronic documents, a new ISO technical report on electronic storage has a huge potential for use in situations where the trustworthiness of electronic information may need to be demonstrated, such as in contract negotiations and in a regulatory and legal context.

Organizations, whether large or small, have a vested interest in ensuring the authenticity and integrity of electronic image files, whether created and/or imported directly or through a network - throughout their whole life cycle, from initial capture to eventual destruction - as evidence of business transactions and events.

ISO/TR 15801:2004, Electronic imaging - Information stored electronically - Recommendations for trustworthiness and reliability, provides a complete list of controls that an organization needs to implement in order to safeguard trustworthiness and reliability of electronically stored information - including policies, security measures, procedures, technology requirements and audit trials.

Regardless of the size of the enterprise, the type of organization, or the quantity of information, users will benefit from reviewing their electronic storage activities against the technical report's best practice guidelines.

"The technical report is expected to result in improved access, reduced requirement to keep paper originals or copies, better long term accessibility, and improved confidence in electronic storage," said Alan Shipman, Project leader of ISO/TR 15801:2004. "Anyone who stores information electronically, and needs to be able to rely upon their contents, perhaps because of legal and/or regulatory requirements will find the technical report very handy."

ISO/TR 15801:2004 defines recommended practices for electronic storage of business or other information in image form such as correspondence, forms and drawings. It describes procedures whereby an electronic copy may be demonstrated to be a true copy of the original, whether that original was itself an electronic data file or a physical source document.

Source: International Organization for Standardization

A new technical report is expected to help users of the ISO 9000 series identify statistical techniques that will improve the effectiveness of their quality management system.
 

Statistical techniques offer insight into the nature, extent and causes of variability in products and services and, in so doing, help control and reduce problems that could arise from such variability, and which exists throughout the life cycle of products, from market research to customer service and final disposal.
 

Published by ISO (International Organization for Standardization), the new technical report, ISO/TR 10017:2003, Guidance on statistical techniques for ISO 9001:2000, is intended to assist managers in their decision-making processes by identifying statistical techniques that could help improve the quality of products and processes.
 

"The effective deployment of statistical techniques is largely governed by how well their potential application and benefit are understood by management," says Lally Marwah, Convenor of the working group that developed the new standard. "This need is well served by the recently published technical report, which offers a clear and concise view of a range of widely used statistical techniques, and their potential role and value in driving quality improvement."
 

It can be used by organizations in developing, implementing, maintaining and improving a quality management system based on ISO 9001:2000, although the use of ISO/TR 10017 is not a requirement for certification/registration purposes.
 

ISO/TR 10017:2003 replaces ISO/TR 10017:1999. It is aligned with ISO 9001:2000 and will serve as a strategic tool for managers who may not necessarily be experts in statistical techniques.
 

ISO/TR 10017:2003, Guidance on statistical techniques for ISO 9001:2000, costs 102 Swiss francs and is available from ISO national member institutes (see the complete list with contact details) and from ISO Central Secretariat. The standard is the work of ISO technical committee ISO/TC 176, Quality management and quality assurance, subcommittee SC 3, Supporting technologies, working group WG 6, Statistical techniques.
 

Source: International Organization for Standardization

ISO 19011:2002, Guidelines for quality and/or environmental management systems auditing, replaces six older standards in the ISO 9000 (quality) and ISO 14000 (environment) families. Its use will give organizations a more integrated and balanced view of their operations, making it an outstanding tool for continuous improvement towards business excellence. It is also aimed to help user organizations optimize their management systems, facilitate the integration of quality and environmental management, and, in allowing single audits of both systems, save money and decrease disruption of work units being audited.

ISO 19011, which is available in English and in French, costs 110 Swiss francs and can be purchased from ISO national member institutes or from ISO Central Secretariat.

Both the ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 families of International Standards emphasize the importance of audits as a management tool for monitoring and verifying the effective implementation of an organization's policy for quality and/or environmental management. Audits are also an essential part of activities such as external certification/registration and of supply chain evaluation and surveillance.

ISO 19011 provides guidance on the conduct of internal or external quality and/or environmental management system audits, as well as on the management of audit programs. Intended users of this International Standard include auditors, organizations implementing quality and/or environmental management systems, and organizations involved in auditor certification or training, certification/registration of management systems, and accreditation or standardization in the area of conformity assessment.

ISO 19011 was developed by a joint working group (JWG) set up by two subcommittees of the ISO technical committees ISO/TC 176, Quality management and quality assurance, and ISO/TC 207, Environmental management.

The new guidelines provide a uniform approach for the auditing of environmental (EMS) and quality management systems (QMS), As many organizations implement both EMS and QMS - either as separate systems, or as an integrated management system - they want to harmonize and, where possible, combine the auditing of these systems.

As far as external audits are concerned, ISO 19011 also provides certification/registration bodies with a uniform approach and will facilitate the combined external assessment of management systems. ISO 19011 is thus serving a real market need for better harmonization of practices in the quality and environmental management arenas.

An important improvement of the new guideline is related to auditor qualifications. The standard recognizes more explicitly than the previous auditing guidelines that the competence of the audit team and individual auditors varies according to the nature, scope and complexity of the audit and that is not possible to set uniform competence criteria which are applicable to all kinds of situations. Therefore, ISO 19011 provides a framework that enables organizations to set their own competence requirements and related auditor evaluation processes.

A last improvement is the combination of the descriptions of the management of audit programs and the conduct of individual audits in a single guideline. This combination emphasizes the relationship between the two and makes it clear that the quality of individual audits depends, among other factors, on the quality of the supporting audit program.

ISO 19011 replaces ISO 10011-1, ISO 10011-2 and ISO 10011-3 in the ISO 9000 family and ISO 14010, ISO 14011 and ISO 14012 in the ISO 14000 family, it also completes the ISO 9000 "core series", also comprising the revised ISO 9000, ISO 9001 and ISO 9004, published in December 2000.

Source: International Organization for Standardization

A successful partnership between ISO and the international automotive industry has resulted in the publication of a new edition of ISO/TS 16949, which specifies quality system requirements for suppliers in this sector.

It is expected that the technical specification (TS) will become the common and unique basis for the automotive industry's quality management system requirements worldwide, gradually replacing the multiple national specifications now used by the sector ( e.g. QS 9000, AVSQ, VDA6.1, and EAQF). ISO/TS 16949 therefore has a substantial potential market comprising more than 30 000 companies currently certified (registered) against one or other of the national specifications.

ISO/TS 16949:2002, Quality management systems - Particular requirements for the application of ISO 9001:2000 for automotive production and relevant service part organizations, costs 116 Swiss francs and is available from ISO national member institutes (see complete list with contact details), and from ISO Central Secretariat (sales@iso.org). ISO will also publish a French language version.

The new document, which replaces ISO/TS 16949:1999, results from an agreement between ISO and the International Automotive Task Force (IATF), aimed at meeting the quality management system needs of the international automotive sector.

ISO/TS 16949:2002 was developed by a partnership comprising the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) and the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA), with the support of ISO technical committee ISO/TC 176, which is responsible for the ISO 9000 family of quality management standards.

Henry Gryn, leader of the IATF delegation, commented, "The IATF is pleased to announce the release of ISO/TS 16949:2002 for the global automotive supply chain. This technical specification is a value-adding document for the automotive sector. The process for completion was fast and involved participation by original equipment manufacturers (OEM's), suppliers and ISO/TC 176 members. We believe that this technical specification, when coupled with its accompanying registration scheme, has significant benefits for the suppliers to whom it is applicable and for subscribing OEM's."

Pierre Caillibot, Chairman of ISO/TC 176, observed, "The publication of the second edition of ISO/TS 16949 marks an important step for the automotive industry worldwide. It confirms that the profound changes made to ISO 9001in its year 2000 edition have not diminished its relevance as the undisputed foundation standard for quality management systems. This is good news for the hundreds of thousands of organizations which have elected over the years to implement the ISO 9000 standards.

"The anticipated use of ISO/TS 16949:2002 by the automotive industry worldwide also signals that the goal of converging sector-specific initiatives on to the foundation of ISO 9001:2000 is a realistic one."

The new document aims at the development of a quality management system that provides for continual improvement, emphasizing defect prevention and the reduction of variation and waste in the supply chain. Incorporating the requirements of ISO 9001:2000, ISO/TS 16949:2002 also includes detailed, sector-specific requirements for employee competence, awareness and training, design and development, production and service provision, control of monitoring and measuring devices, and measurement, analysis and improvement.

The individual OEM members of the IATF, including DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Ford, Fiat, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Renault, BMW and Volkswagen, are now in the process of formulating or announcing their policies for implementation of the technical specification by their respective supply bases.

Source: International Organization for Standardization

Global Quality Institute, a Canadian consulting firm and Global Quality Systems, a consulting firm based in San Diego, merged technological and human resources to provide Quality and Environmental Systems training in English and Spanish

As a result, the partnership will be supported by experienced professionals in quality systems in the chemical, food, drug, aerospace, automotive, electronic, telecommunications, software, and construction industries.

Global Quality Institute is an organization engaged in providing world-class quality and environmental training, consulting and related productivity software services (ISO 9001, QS-9000, ISO 14001).

Global Quality Systems is a new organization incorporated in September 2001, with strong knowledge in Quality Improvement techniques, such as: Design of Experiments, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis, Quality Function Deployment, Statistical Process Control, and Six Sigma.

Global Quality Systems, Inc.

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