What happened to the ISO 9000 lustre? An eight-year study

Abstract

The evolution of the benefits and costs of ISO 9001 registration over time is analysed through a four-year follow-up on the research published earlier in this journal (Casadesús & Karapetrovic, 2005a). A longitudinal empirical study was developed and conducted over a period of eight years, with three surveys administered in 1998, 2002 and 2006, respectively. More than 1000 companies based in Catalonia (Spain) took part in the study, which asked for their perceptions regarding the resources involved in and the outcomes of the implementation and registration of an ISO 9001-compliant quality management system. The results show a continued decrease in the benefits of ISO 9001 registration overall. However, the benefits which are directly related to the objectives of an ISO 9001 quality management system, as stated in the ISO 9001:2000 standard, are still dominant and reported by a large majority of companies. The study also found an additional decrease in the costs of implementing and maintaining the standard, and a further reduction in the average time needed for implementation, with reference to the initial (1998–2002) longitudinal research.

Keywords:

• ISO 9000
• ISO 9001
• benefits
• quality assurance

Notes

For instance, public institutions in the USA, such as the Department of Defense and the Food and Drug Administration, as well as other bodies of a private nature, such as the American Chemistry Council and the Automobile Manufacturers' Association, adopted the ISO 9000 standards (Crowe et al., 1998).

Especially noteworthy is the publicised study carried out over a decade ago by a well-known international certifying body in the United Kingdom, which pointed out that registered companies had increased their sales, profit margins and financial profitability to a much greater extent than the non-registered ones.