1. A new family of standards: the "2000 product line

To make the standards more accessible to companies, the new ISO 9000 series consists of four basic standards:

• ISO 9000: Quality management systems – Essential principles and vocabulary (December 15, 2000) ;

• ISO 9004: Quality management systems – Guidelines for performance improvement (December 15, 2000) ;

• ISO 9001: Quality management systems – Requirements (December 15, 2000) ;

• ISO 19011: Auditing quality and environmental management systems (3rd quarter 2002).

These four standards are articulated according to the logic of continuous improvement defined by the PDCA principle:

• P (plan): I understand the principles of a management system and the terminology before...