Over one million organizations worldwide are independently certified, making ISO 9001 one of the most widely used management tools in the world today.

The ISO 9001:2015 standard is designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders while meeting statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or program.

It deals with the fundamentals of quality management systems, and more specifically, the requirements that organizations wishing to meet the standard must fulfill.

Confirmation that organizations meet the requirements of ISO 9001 is provided by independent third-party certification bodies.

The standard specifies that the organization shall issue, maintain and communicate:

• documented procedures

• a quality policy

• a quality manual

• numerous records

• the effectiveness of the quality management system

• examples of implementation

The ISO 9001:2015 standard follows the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle in a process based approach. Outline requirements for ISO 9001:2015 are as follows:

Section 4: Context of the Organization

Section 5: Leadership

Section 6: Planning

Section 7: Support

Section 8: Operation

Section 9: Performance Evaluation

Section 10: Improvement