In order to ensure commonality in approach, the ISO has published a set of five Standards that would form the building blocks for all conformity assessment standards in future. 

These are:

• Impartiality and avoidance of conflicts of interest (ISO PAS 17001:2005)
  
• Confidentiality and trust (ISO PAS 17002:2004)
  
• Complaints and appeals (ISO PAS 17003:2004)
  
• Disclosure of information and transparency (ISO PAS 17004:2005)
  
• Use of management systems in conformity assessment - Principles and requirements (ISO/CD PAS 17005:2004)

The subjects of these Standards depict areas where the main emphasis lies, such as in avoidance of all means of conflict of interest (the greatest bane in the certification business), trust (credibility), customer complaints handling, transparency and the adoption of basic management system principles. Evidently these are of paramount importance to protect the soundness of the certification / accreditation systems.

The merit of these standards is slowly being realized both by regulatory as well as market sectors. In each country, two regimes operate in controlling the quality (and safety) of goods and services. The Regulatory regime operates from standpoint of health, safety, environment and the Sectors mostly covered are food, electrical appliances, toys, gas appliances, safety equipment, electronics, IT and telecom. The Voluntary regime relates to insistence on ISO 9000/ISO 14000- generally by organized buyers e.g. retail chains). A recent thinking is to make available alternative schemes to industry such as 'Self declaration' in place of third party intervention as incentive for good performance, leading to reduced regulatory checking. For instance a High level committee has been set up by the Planning Commission to consider as an option, third party certification for industry to demonstrate regulatory compliance in fields of Environment /Occupational Health and Safety /Social Accountability to national/international standards with the provision of tier 2 certification focusing only on areas of regulatory compliance.

Another area of focus is the Service Sector which is adopting the Quality Management Systems in a big way. However, some difficulty is being faced on adopting the standards largely written and interpreted for the manufacturing sector. The ISO has published ISO 9001:2000: A workbook for service organizations designed to make it easier for service providers to achieve the benefits, such as increased efficiency and effectiveness, of implementing ISO 9001:2000.

These developments would indicate the QMS is in an evolutionary phase. While we will continue to innovate on the assessment models, the core of the systems would continue to find a very important place within organizational governance.

(The author is a Senior Counsellor with the CII Institute of Quality)