Quite probably, you have seen more than a few companies bragging about being ISO 9000 certified. In the marketing materials it is usually presented as a doubtless proof of higher quality. However, what they don’t necessarily want you to know, is that the perception has little to do with the reality.

ISO 9000 is a family of standards that specify requirements for a quality management system. The combination of “standard” and the presence of “quality” in the name is what creates the confusion. This standard is for quality management systems, not - certifying quality of systems. See the difference?

In reality certification to ISO 9000 says nothing about the compliance or quality of end products and services. It just certifies that consistent business processes are being applied.

If a company is ISO 9000 certified and their process is bad, it will be consistently bad. Pretty neat, huh?