Standards Banner Signals Success
2005-09-28
Less than two decades since the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)’s most well known series of standards, ISO 9000, came on the scene, there are now hundreds of thousands of organizations worldwide that have implemented these quality management system standards. Likewise, organizations of all kinds have embraced the ISO 14000 series of management system standards that were developed in the late 1990s using many of the same principles as the ISO 9000 series, but with a focus on environmental management.
Today, huge banners proclaiming certification can be seen on company buildings in Canadian cities and towns and, around the world. Some 610,000 organizations in 160 countries are certified to these management standards, including the various sector-specific versions that have evolved over the years.
ISO 9001 has become an international reference for quality management system (QMS) requirements in business-to business dealings, and ISO 14001 is well on its way to achieving as much, if not more, in enabling organizations to meet their environmental responsibilities.
ISO 9001:2000 helps an organization institutionalize the "quality" philosophy by supporting it with policies, procedures, records, technologies, resources and structures. This ensures that everyone is clear about who is responsible for doing what, when, how, why and where. It increases efficiency by ensuring that people are doing things correctly the first time. And as one company that implemented the systems to help with a difficult period of downsizing said: "They (management system standards) help preserve our corporate memory".
The ISO 14000 family is a series of environmental management system (EMS) standards. This encompasses everything an organization does to minimize harmful effects on the environment caused by its activities. The aim of the standards is to help organizations continually improve environmental performance. While the series was designed with a similar structure to ISO 9001, the newest version of the standard, ISO 14001: 2004 was revised to ensure greater compatibility with the quality standard as many organizations are choosing to seek certification for both systems.
From the beginning, Canada has been at the forefront of the development of both the ISO 9000 and IS0 14000 series', and continues to be a key contributor to the maintenance and review of the standards, including facilitation of the transition to ISO 9001:2000 that was completed in 2003 and the current transition period for ISO 14001:2004, which ends on May 15, 2006.
While many countries contributed to the making of ISO 9000 series, which was published in 1987, Canada can take special pride in having lead the group that developed the series. When the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) decided in 1979 to create a technical committee for quality standards, Canada was seen as a natural choice to hold the secretariat because of its expertise. The Canadian Standards Association, which had already developed a number of national quality standards, was given responsibility for the committee secretariat on behalf of the SCC, Canada’s national member body at ISO.
When an ISO technical committee was formed several years later to develop what would become the ISO 14000 series of environmental management systems standards, Canada was again identified to take the helm. The secretariats for both committees are both still held by CSA.
Individual Canadians have also been recognized for their many contributions to efforts in developing and revising the standards. In 2002, the SCC awarded its inaugural Roy A. Phillips Award for Canadian contributions to international standardization work to Reg Shaughnessy, who chaired the ISO committee responsible for the development of ISO 9000. That same year, SCC awarded Ahamed Husseini with a distinguished service award for his contributions to the ISO technical committee on environmental management standards.
Canada has played a key role in developing and refining the standards, but perhaps even more important to the country as a whole are the benefits that have been reaped by national companies and organizations who have integrated the standards into their management practices.
While many Canadians associate ISO 9000 with factories and manufacturing, today, certification to quality management system standards is being pursued by all levels of government, not-for-profit organizations, schools and colleges and industries ranging from high technology firms to fire fighting equipment manufacturers.
In Canada, the SCC is the national accreditation body for QMS and EMS management system certification bodies. Accreditation demonstrates that an organization has met stringent recognized international requirements. In addition, it shows that they possess the competence, impartiality and performance capability to evaluate the conformity of an organization’s quality or environmental management systems, to international standards.[i] Thanks to numerous Agreements that have been signed between Canada and other countries, certification by an SCC-accredited organization also makes it more likely that a companies’ certificate of conformity to ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 will be recognized in foreign markets.
Since launching its accreditation program for QMS certification bodies in 1993, the SCC has accredited dozens of organizations that have in-turn certified hundreds of organizations to the ISO 9000 series.
National Steel Car of Hamilton, Ontario fits the traditional image of a large factory bearing the familiar ISO 9000 logo. But the list of certified organizations also includes: the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the City of Fredericton, the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, the Royal Canadian Mint and the Membertou First Nation near Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Roland Boulanger & Co. Ltd., a leading Canadian manufacturer of high quality mouldings and wood components in the Quebec City area, has been registered to ISO 9000 for the past eight years, recently upgrading its certification to the ISO 9001:2000 standard.
More than one-third of the 400-employee company's market is in the U.S. But to do business there, wood products companies must account for wood sources and all wood used in production in order to meet American legal requirements regarding fair pricing under NAFTA. Thanks to the framework and discipline required by their ISO 9000 quality management system, Boulanger has never been cited for unfair pricing -- unlike some of its competitors. Continual improvement under ISO 9000 has placed Boulanger in a better position to compete both in Canada and the U.S., and to meet the challenges posed by U.S. trade regulations
The profiles of ISO 14000 environmental management systems registrants are also surprising. A diamond mine in Snap Lake, NWT, a ski resort in British Columbia, and a Southern Ontario hospital, as well as forestry companies and hog producing operations provide a sampling of the types of organizations that have achieved ISO 14000 certification.
Snap Lake, a project of De Beers Canada Mining Inc. was the first mining operation in the Northwest Territories to achieve ISO 14001 certification for its environmental management system (EMS). Snap Lake is De Beers' most advanced diamond project in Canada.
"The ISO 14001 standard helps us meet the commitment to environmental protection made in our Environmental Assessment Report," says John McConnell, Vice-President, NWT Projects. "This will be a valuable tool for us through the construction, operation and eventual closure of a diamond mine at Snap Lake. It not only helps us in setting and reaching goals, but also helps us maintain reliable documentation of our work so that we can provide accurate reports to monitoring agencies and other interested groups."
These are among the countless examples of companies whose use of management systems standards, developed with the input of many Canadians, are helping to improve the economic and social landscape of Canada. They represent only a fraction of the positive impact that voluntary standardization is having both here and around the world.
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