The revision of ISO’s flagship product, ISO 9001, faces a disastrous mix of forced errors, in-fighting, and lack of leadership, threatening the intended publication date.
ISO had intended to publish the next edition of ISO 9001 in late 2025. This date was already a concession after the world’s official ISO delegates had voted against revising the standard at all. ISO made at least five attempts to get member nations to change their votes through various means, from formal voting rounds to informal SurveyMonkey polls. The ISO Central Secretariat privately demanded the standard be revised to suit various internal motives, and the official votes against the revisions threatened to scuttle those plans. Finally, a sixth vote was held and enough nations abstained to allow the measure to pass; however, this delayed the publication by at least two years, as ISO intended to issue the updated version in 2023.
ISO’s reasons for insisting included the political ambitions of ISO Secretary-General Sergio Mujica and a need to update ISO 9001 after updates were made to the mandatory core text written by the ISO Technical Management Board, called “Annex SL.”
To hasten a 2025 publication date, ISO then developed at least two drafts of the revision. The first, a “Secret Draft” written by a single TC 176 member, was never released and is reported to have been nothing more than an update to accommodate the changes to Annex SL core text. Then, a Committee Draft (CD) was prepared which was met with much public blowback after leaks and a line-by-line review by Oxebridge.
Committee Draft Blowback
The CD ignored the proposed language of the Secret Draft, suggesting that those writing the two drafts were not in communication. Instead, the CD made only minor edits to non-mandatory “Notes,” with the only significant change being the removal of a requirement that quality objectives be measurable. This latter change baffled quality professionals and suggested ISO was moving to “management by slogans” instead of data.
The CD then added an entire book as an Appendix, copied-and-pasted from a prior ISO publication on implementing ISO 9001 in small businesses. The public rejected this idea, as the addition would have nearly quadrupled the number of pages of the standard and thus forced ISO to charge over $400 per copy. The addendum also made no sense to anyone but small businesses.
Laziness and Confusion
The relatively small number of changes proposed by the CD raised concerns as to just what the technical committee, called TC 176, had been doing all this time. These concerns were shared by the Central Secretariat, which then made the bold move to strip TC 176 leaders of their roles and to hand control of the development of ISO 9001 to the British Standards Institute (BSI). TC 176 Convenor Devindra Chattergoon was stripped of his role, and instead given a minor role on Working Group 29. That committee is overseeing the processing of comments on the CD, but was largely seen as moot. ISO has since demanded a new draft, called “CD2,” be drafted to replace the prior CD entirely.
Behind the scenes, ISO has also been advancing on its “ISO Smart” program, which will convert ISO standards from publications that users can buy to a “standards as a subscription” service. ISO Smart, which ISO rolled out without consensus or buy-in from member nations, would dramatically reduce or eliminate voting on standards, as ISO claims standards will be updated “in real-time,” thus stripping out review and commenting activities entirely. ISO Smart also requires the standards be made “machine-readable” but ISO has failed to explain what, exactly, this means for ISO 9001.
The Central Secretariat has now demanded that CD2 comply with the ISO Smart requirements, specifically to be machine-readable, prompting further edits.
Morale Collapse
Dr. Beata Mroz-Orlikowska, the secretary for TC 176 Subcommittee 2 and a standards developer for BSI, has been assigned to take over WG29. But sources report that the most recent meeting of WG29 fell apart in disarray, with members in open disagreement and ending without any consensus on what, exactly, to do. The leadership is also frustrated that few within TC 176 are meeting deadlines for their tasks, and that some are either resigning from TC 176 entirely or not appearing at meetings.
Overall, the level of morale at TC 176 is low, with many angry that nominated experts no longer have a say in the development of ISO 9001, and how much power BSI has been granted in their place.
Behind the scenes, a protest against the Central Secretariat, demanding authority be given back to TC 176, appears to have fallen flat.
All of these problems now put the 2025 publication date at risk, and ISO has not developed an updated timeline for the project. For the 2025 date to remain intact, key steps, such as translation and interim drafts, will have to be bypassed entirely.
