| ISO 9000 |
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ISO 9000 is a family of standards for quality management systems.
ISO 9000 is maintained by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization and is administered by accreditation and certification bodies. For a manufacturer, some of the requirements in ISO 9001 (which is one of the standards in the ISO 9000 family) would include:
* a set of procedures that cover all key processes in the business;
* monitoring manufacturing processes to ensure they are producing quality product;
* keeping proper records;
* checking outgoing product for defects, with appropriate corrective action where necessary;
* regularly reviewing individual processes and the quality system itself for effectiveness.
A company or organization that has been independently audited and certified to be in conformance with ISO 9001 may publicly state that it is "ISO 9001 certified" or "ISO 9001 registered." Certification to an ISO 9000 standard does not guarantee the compliance (and therefore the quality) of end products and services; rather, it certifies that consistent business processes are being applied.
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