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Quality management standards establish a framework for how a business manages its key activities. They identify an agreed way of doing something, either making a product, managing a process or delivering a service.
Quality management standards are details of requirements, specifications, guidelines and characteristics that products, services and processes should consistently meet in order to ensure:
Standards are an essential element of quality management systems.
Businesses use standards to satisfy their customers' quality requirements and for a range of other reasons, such as:
Businesses committed to following quality management standards are often more able to:
See also advantages of quality management systems.
ISO international standards are by far the most widely accepted set of quality standards in the world. ISO 9001:2015 specifies the requirements for a quality management system that businesses can use to develop their own quality agenda.
See also ISO 9001 quality management standard.
Other standards related to quality include:
Standards can be very specific, applying to a particular type of product, or general such as wide-ranging management practices. Find a list of ISO management system standards.
Use of standards may be voluntary, but certain groups of customers or stakeholders may expect it. Also, some organisations and government bodies may require suppliers and partners to comply with standards as a condition of doing business.
Standards can help you to achieve best practice in a wide range of business activities, not just quality management. For example:
See how to make best use of standards.