Somewhere, somewhen, it’s year 2022 A.D.
After some decades spent patronizing customers – and consumers, to some extent – ISO Committees have finally realized what’s really going on in their management system markets and decided to bow before the real market laws.
So they’ve decided that the new ISO 9001 version – replacing the obsolete 2015 edition – will put supplying processes up front.
THINGS CHANGE
It was said that with QS 9000 the customer was the king and with ISO/TS 16949 the customer was the emperor.
With ISO 9001:2021 the supplier is the first actor, dominating the scene. A Hamlet-like character who doesn’t ask himself whether to obey or not to obey (to customers’ and consumers’ dictates) but decide by himself whether to supply or not supply – at his own choice and expense.
There’re two basic points to be analyzed, if we want to understand this significant change in ISO 9001 philosophy, that is:
- Why this dramatic change to risk seems almost a revolution?
- What will be the consequences and the side effects?
FIRST QUESTION
To question # 1:
ISO 9001:2015 revealed itself just a copy-and-paste re-make of the previous 2008 edition. The fact that it only formally addressed risk management revealed itself an intrinsic failure, since it only benefited the budgets of consulting and training organizations, and registrars.
Organizations did their best to approach Risk, spending money to buy often expensive Standards and hire consultants and trainers but, as a matter of fact, no significant reduction in accidents or risky events was recorded, as it was expected.
The cause of this failure is to looked for and found in the majority of organizations’ culture immaturity to understand, identify, and be aware of Risk.
ISO 9001:2015 didn’t help them, either: its focus was still on conformity to specifications, customer satisfaction and continuous improvement, a triad that could only lead to organizations’ demotivation – as it did.
Organizations, especially manufacturing companies, never showed a great belief in continuous or continual improvement, a commandment that was hardly explained to them, thus making it hard to be understood – and implemented.
The same with customer satisfaction, the measure – or estimate – of which was always left to poorly significant questionnaires: they were all the same, in hotels and cruising ships, in libraries and manufacturing and service companies.
People accustomed to being interviewed as customers – or consumers – and to record their satisfaction level would divine well in advance the questions they would be subject to, and answer accordingly: keep your supplier satisfied.
This apparent present un-success is probably also due to viewing ISO 9001:2015 as a budget-making opportunity by the above mentioned consulting and training organizations, but it was seldom seen as a viable system to make organizations more credible and reliable, both externally and internally.
Much can be argued on this, and a six-year old Standard can’t say anything but what it is, its effects having to be measured in time.
Nevertheless, ISO/TC 176 Committee’s work on Risk has to be praised, last but not least to move a big step from quality conformity to risk awareness.
This said, though not meaning any criticism to ISO, their urgency to review standards every five years makes their product standards seem raw. Why? Standards’ changes that so intensely impact market culture need time to be digested. On the other end, modifying a few words or lines of a standard makes no sense, unless very specific content in the standard seems obsolete.
SECOND QUESTION
To question # 2:
It’s going to be a revolution for sure. After thirty or so years of hearing and reading that ‘the customer is always right,’ ‘the customer is our most important resource,’ and so on, ISO 9001:2021 turns its coat upside down and says that the customer is important, but but suppliers are equally important.
No dominance therefore but reciprocal respect.
This bow-before-customer approach has contaminated industry and economy beyond any imagination, since ever: its corollary became – and is – ‘Cash! And don’t care for anything else.’
THE SIDE EFFECTS
Registrars’ auditors do NOT have to think of themselves as the customer’s – or consumers’ – ultimate representatives anymore, but as critical supplier’s or service provider.
This also solves the old dispute that registrars’ auditors often consult auditees, more or less openly – and honestly.
Industry now seems to be traveling a different route. It will take some years for it to adjust; provided ISO 9001:2021 will not show the failures of its predecessors. It’s going to provide for a significant leap forward, if not last, in the attitude between makers and users.
The supply scenarios evolved since 2015. While eastern economies grew more and more aggressive, western economies established policies to protect themselves in their own citadels.
ISO may also have to adapt. In a world like ours, where so many dramatic and frequent changes occur, it’s highly expected that standardization bodies, like ISO, must be nimble to produce accurate and relevant standards.
We all wonder what ISO 9001 will look like in 2030, competition will become more fierce and will have to adjust to market pressures.
Looking at the last decade’s trends, general population unemployment rate will stay over ten percent, and juvenile un-employment around twenty to twenty-five percent, world-wide.
Elderly, non employed population would be one third of total population.
And we’ve still to reckon with underdeveloped economies, be they countries or continents like Africa.
In the last decades – remember, we’re now in year 2022 – we’ve been facing buying and consuming communities that we’ve never met before.
If this is a statistical trend, we should better not ignore it. Future is heavy on our shoulders, Past lies quietly in front of us.
ISO will have to meet future challenges. If it wants to maintain its status as the standards’ lighthouse, ISO will have to deal with highly populated developing countries, like China or India or the Far East, which may threaten its position as the preeminent developer of global standards.