9001Council | About Us

About us

9001Council.org, which is not affiliated with ISO, is the official website of our international compliance support network consisting of veteran experts in ISO 9001 quality management systems, who have gained many years of experience with all aspects of the ISO 9001 standard on a worldwide basis.

Our expertise includes quality management and quality assurance, ISO 9001 auditing, ISO 9001 implementation, business consulting and management. We are a non-governmental organization.

We created this website for you as a forum for practical information and advice because over the years we have seen too many companies struggle with all aspects of ISO 9001, and we thought that by contributing our experience and knowledge through this simple website we could help alleviate the difficulties that companies are facing on their journey towards ISO 9001:2008 certification and beyond.

A new name

July 17 2011. We are pleased to announce our name change. Henceforth, the ISO 9000 Council will be known as the 9001 Council. This new name reflects the fact that ISO 9001 is now the dominant designation.

All other certification standards of the ISO 9000 series (ie, ISO 9002 and ISO 9003) have become obsolete, leaving ISO 9001 as the only standard that sets forth requirements for quality management systems. With the phasing out of ISO 9002 and ISO 9003, the designation “ISO 9000” has been continually losing importance, while the designation “ISO 9001” has become globally recognized.

On another note, with ISO 9001 now being implemented in over one million organizations in over 170 countries, we have reached capacity and are – for the time being – no longer accepting applications for membership. We remain, however, dedicated to providing the best possible advice to all companies pursuing ISO 9001 certification through this website.

Our goal

Our goal is to promote the global acceptance and utilization of ISO 9001 as a tool for increased quality, customer satisfaction and business/process efficiency.

Our solution

In attempting to reach our goal, we identified the following key problems that companies face in implementing a true ISO 9001:2008 system that helps increase quality, customer satisfaction and business/process efficiency. We then tried to help solve these problems.

Problem: Misconceptions about ISO 9001 are leading to a wrong ISO 9001 implementation approach.

Solution: We are providing some basic information on ISO 9001:2008 and on its implementation. With this information, you will hopefully start in the right direction.

Problem: Companies spend unnecessarily large amounts of money and time on their ISO 9001:2008 implementation.

Solution: We find that for many small and medium sized companies the use of ISO 9000 consultants is not the ideal way to implement their ISO 9001 quality management system. Instead, those companies can do very well implementing ISO 9001 in-house using good templates. This is why we created an entire section on templates.

Problem: Use of bad documentation templates, particularly templates that create inefficient ISO 9001:2008 systems.

Solution: Our Reviews section provides several reviews of ISO 9001 templates. Please note that since the number of reviews is limited, we also provide some tips on how to do your own reviews.

Problem: Companies merely see ISO 9001 as a marketing tool, and fail to realize its great potential as a tool for increased quality, customer satisfaction and business/process efficiency.

Solution: We are providing some information that should help clarify ISO 9001's potential as a powerful business improvement tool. All our reviews are also explicitly taking business value-added into account.

Problem: Following outdated and obsolete ISO 9001 books and templates.

Solution: Please be aware that many ISO 9001 books and documentation templates currently available are obsolete. Even many years after the last major revision of the ISO 9000 standards series in December 2000, there are still many books and templates available that merely tweaked the completely obsolete 1994 version of ISO 9001 to appear to fit the requirements of the 2000 revision. However, the result of this "tweaking" is generally inadequate. Also, many ISO 9001 books and documentation templates have not been updated to reflect the changes of the 2008 revision (ISO 9001:2008).

We are providing several reviews to help you avoid such obsolete books and templates. However, in case you evaluate other materials yourself, we also list some tips and warning signals.

Membership applications

Thank you for your interest but we are currently not accepting any new membership applications as we have reached our capacity.

Your feedback is appreciated

We are constantly trying to improve this website and the information provided. Please send your feedback, comments and reviews of this website or of any pertinent ISO 9001 related products and information to: info@9001council.org

We appreciate your continuing support.
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