A quality management system enables you to manage your business processes effectively. Quality management systems cannot be defined simply by a set of rules and procedures, but must be flexible and responsive in their approach to meet market, cultural, human and process requirements.

The revised standard ISO 9001:2000 has replaced the QMS standards ISO 9001/2/3:1994. The new standard is more process-oriented than clause-oriented, meaning it can more closely identify and reflect the needs of your particular organisation. It defines quality as providing customer confidence, and concentrates on those activities that are critical to meeting the needs of the customers.

A process-based approach ensures that systems are documented in a manner which suits an organisation's own way of doing business – not to an imposed artificial structure. We have been involved with this process-based analysis approach to quality management for many years through the quality programme techniques required by the nuclear industry.