ISO 9000 is a family of standards for quality management systems. ISO 9000 is maintained by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization and is administered by accreditation and certification bodies. The rules are updated, and the time and changes in the requirements for quality, motivate change. Recently, on November 15, 2008, has made changes to the requirements of ISO 9001

Some of the requirements in ISO 9001:2008 (which is one of the standards in the ISO 9000 family) include

• a set of procedures that cover all key processes in the business;
• monitoring processes to ensure they are effective;
• keeping adequate records;
• checking output for defects, with appropriate and corrective action where necessary;
• regularly reviewing individual processes and the quality system itself for effectiveness; and
• facilitating continual improvement

A company or organization that has been independently audited and certified to be in conformance with ISO 9001 may publicly state that it is “ISO 9001 certified” or “ISO 9001 registered”. Certification to an ISO 9001 standard does not guarantee any quality of end products and services; rather, it certifies that formalized business processes are being applied.

ISO 14001 is a standard for environmental management systems to be implemented in any business, regardless of size, location or income. The aim of the standard is to reduce the environmental footprint of a business and to decrease the pollution and waste a business produces.

The most recent version of ISO 14001 was released in 2004 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) which has representation from committees all over the world. The ISO 14000 environmental management standards exist to help organizations minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment. In structure, it is similar to ISO 9000 quality management and both can be implemented side by side. In order for an organisation to be awarded an ISO 14001 certificate it must be externally audited by an audit body that has been accredited by an accreditation body. In the UK, this is UKAS.

OHSAS 18000 is an international occupational health and safety management system specification. It comprises two parts, 18001 and 18002 and embraces BS8800 and several other publications.

OHSAS 18001:2007 supersedes OHSAS 18001:1999

There have been several significant changes to the document since the first edition was published in 1999.

The changes reflect the widespread use and experience of the standard in more than 80 countries, and by approximately 16,000 certified organizations

Principal amongst the changes are much greater emphasis on “health” rather than just “safety”, and significantly improved alignment to ISO 14001:2004 (to enable organizations to develop “integrated management systems”). BMBHRC was certified for the revised standard on 23 April 2009.