There are five sections in the standard that specify activities that need to be considered when you implement your system. You will describe the activities you use to supply your products and may exclude the parts of the Product Realization section that are not applicable to your operations. The requirements in the other four sections - Quality management system, Management responsibility, Resource management and Measurement, analysis and improvement-apply to all organizations and you will demonstrate how you apply them to your organization in your quality manual or other documentation.

Together, the five sections of ISO 9001:2000 define what you should do consistently to provide product that meets customer and applicable statutory or regulatory requirements. In addition, you will seek to enhance customer satisfaction by improving your quality management system. (ISO Standards are available on our Sandia Internal ISO 9000 Website)

ISO 9004:2000 is used to extend the benefits obtained from ISO 9001:2000 to all parties that are interested in or affected by your business operations. Interested parties include your employees, owners, suppliers and society in general.

ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 9004:2000 are harmonized in structure and terminology to assist you to move smoothly from one to the other. Both standards apply a process approach. Processes are recognized as consisting of one or more linked activities that require resources and must be managed to achieve predetermined output. The output of one process may directly form the input to the next process and the final product is often the result of a network or system of processes. The eight Quality Management Principles stated in ISO 9000:2000 and ISO 9004:2000 provide the basis for the performance improvement outlined in ISO 9004:2000.

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