I found this on LinkedIn, posted by French quality, safety and environment (QSE) expert Jean-Maria Reilhac, of QleanRSE Consulting. I am reposting it with permission, but his original article can be found here.

Reilhac brings some additional concerns to the forefront re: this bungled revision of ISO 9001. If you recall, the world voted multiple times to maintain ISO 9001:2015 as-is, but behind the scenes, ISO painted itself into a corner. It updated the “common text” of Annex SL and then demanded the standard be updated to include it. This created a conundrum: if the world voted not to update the standard but ISO demanded it be updated anyway, how could the conflict be reconciled? So ISO held a yearslong campaign to get nations to change their votes, then had multiple re-votes until they got the answer they wanted.

Now, we have seen two Committee Drafts of ISO 9001:2026, and the results are poor. The new Annex SL text — not written by any quality management subject matter experts — makes the standard worse, not better. Meanwhile, the authors are arguing over minutia (“e.g.,” versus “for example”) rather than asserting themselves as quality experts and telling the ISO Technical Management Board to back off.

The end result has been, to date, drafts that are very, very bad. ISO and BSI are refusing to listen to experts and stakeholders, and dead-set on releasing a botched product without any design validation or critical feedback.

But don’t take my word for it. Here is Reilhac’s piece:

What is the future of ISO 9001?

With a rushed revision project for a new 2025 version mixing non-auditable societal concepts and quality management requirements.

Where Quality will have to find its place with global warming…

Why override environmental product and service regulations? What about the positioning of this version regarding ISO 14001 and ISO 53001, the future certifiable standard for SDG management systems?

Where the customer no longer appears as the central interested party…

What about the purpose of ISO 9001 to regularly provide products and services that comply with customer requirements?

Where moral postures such as ethics and integrity will be considered to attest to compliance or non-compliance with the QMS…

What about cultural differences and the end use of products from ISO 9001 certified organizations?

Where the vision and values will have to be defined and demonstrated for any organization regardless of their size and origin…

What about its positioning with the Quality Policy requirement? The company’s vision and values concern a much wider field than Quality; are more implicit than explicit and are not exclusive to ISO 9001.

Where the Quality culture will be required and must be demonstrated…

What about the organizations applying for certification that do not yet have a quality culture and that intend to develop it with the practice of ISO9001? And what about the auditability of such a requirement?

Where threat identification is proposed as an alternative to risk identification…

What about weaknesses and hazards that do not constitute threats? Isn’t a threat to the price of oil an opportunity for electrification?

Where quality objectives will be defined without being measurable with indicators quantifying the results…

What about the requirements for effectiveness and evaluation of QMS performance based on the achievement of the targeted results?

Where internal audits will no longer necessarily be in accordance with ISO 19011…
What about ensuring impartial, methodical internal audits at the right time and in the right place?

Where improvement can only be continuous…

What about improvements by projects and sites, by innovation or by breakthrough?

Chapter 8 is ignored in this draft revision …

… even though it brings together most of the requirements acting in quality control in operational activities (the Gemba). This is very regrettable because it is certainly in this chapter that there is the most improvement to be made, for example, with:

  • Managerial and work standards at defined positions, validated because they are effective and deployed,
  • Training, authorizations and skills of operational staff in good operating practices, preventive methods, poka yoke and problem solving,
  • The repositioning of quality control throughout the production cycles,
  • The implementation of appropriate tools and technologies to facilitate the monitoring and control of products and operational activities,
  • Control of suppliers and securing the Supply Chain,
  • Increased traceability by accounting for non-quality costs with the products delivered,
  • Management as close as possible to operations and the use of visual management and PDCA improvement in short and long loops.

This revision project is an amendment resulting from amateurism by ISO Technical Committee 176 with marketing ulterior motives and not a real revision as we saw in 2000 and 2015 which made it possible to “notch” in terms of Quality Management.

This amendment will not advance ISO 9001 but will create confusion (with ISO 14001, ISO 53001, ISO 26000, etc.) and introduce subjectivity into its understanding making audits less certain.

ISO 9001, thus discredited, will no longer be a signal of confidence for the markets, already in a context where product returns are becoming more and more numerous despite quality certifications.

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ISO 45001 Implementation