The International Organization for Standardization
After World War II, many economies opened up. Globalization meant that there had to be certain pre-set standards for products and services, in terms of measurements, safety, and quality. The ISO was born out of this idea.
The ISO was inspired by two organizations- the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA), which was founded in 1926 in New York, and United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC).
The word ISO is not an acronym of International Organization of Standards. It has its origin in the Greek word “isos” meaning equal. ISO was adopted as the name because different languages would have different ways of describing such an organization and therefore the initials would be different. The first step towards standardization began with naming the body ISO. This international body aims to set an international standard for industrial and commercial organizations in the countries. While the ISO is a non-governmental organization, it has very strong links with the governments of the member- nations of the body and their national standard setting bodies.
The ISO established on February 23, 1947 and consist of nearly 157 member-nations. The organization has three levels of membership- Members, correspondent members, and subscriber members. The member bodies are the representative standards laying bodies of their respective member countries. This category of members possesses voting rights within the ISO. The correspondent members on the other hand, are members who do not have a national standards laying body in their countries, but all matters and decisions in the ISO are communicated to them. However, they do not have any say in the standards laying process nor have any voting rights. The subscriber members are comprised of those countries whose economies are very small. They pay a small amount as fee and thus can follow the various developments.
From time to time, the ISO needed to be updated. It was updated in 1987, then in1994 and 2000. The idea was to make the certification process less cumbersome and time consuming. The ISO does not directly certify organizations. The governments of the member nation set up bodies to see if an organization is complying with the ISO standards. The goals and guidelines of ISO 9000 are distinct depending on the type of industry it is addressing. Subgroups interpret the standards of each sector. They preface distinct letters to their certificate that indicates that organization has complied with ISO 9000 quality standards, for instance- TL9000 for telecommunication sector and QS9000 for car manufacturers.
The ISO has its detractors. On one hand it has been criticized for its vagueness in prescribing standards which enables organization to forego quality while on the other it has been criticized for prescribing standards that do not reflect the need of the particular sector and that organizations conform to those standards only because it of the excessive significance attached to it.
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