ISO 9000:2000
BACKGROUND THEME
ISO 9000, founded in 1946 and was first published in 1987. ISO 9000:2000 is a series of standards, developed and published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Third-party certification bodies provide independent confirmation that organizations meet the requirements of ISO 9000. Over a million organizations worldwide are independently certified, making ISO 9000.One of the most widely used management tools in the world today. ISO 9000 deals with the fundamentals of quality management systems.

What Is ISO 9000:2000
ISO 9000 is a series of international quality standards, the guiding principle of which is the prevention of defects through the planning and application of best practices at every stage of business - from design through to installation and servicing. These standards focus on identifying the basic disciplines and specifying the general criteria by which any organization, regardless of whether it is manufacturing or service oriented, can ensure that product leaving its facility meets the requirements of its customers. These standards ask a company to first document and implement its systems for quality management, and then to verify, by means of an audit conducted by an independent accredited third party, the compliance of those systems to the requirements of the standards.
Currently, the ISO 9000 series is comprised of the following international standards:
• ISO 9000 - Guidelines for selection and use
• ISO 9001 - Model for quality assurance: design, development, production, installation and servicing
• ISO 9002 - Model for quality assurance: production, installation and servicing
• ISO 9003 - Model for quality assurance: final inspection and test
• ISO 9004 - Quality management and quality system elements
• ISO 10011 - Guidelines for auditing quality systems
• ISO 10012 - Requirements for measuring equipment
• ISO 10013 - Guidelines for quality manuals.

EIGHT PRINCIPLES
1. Customer Focus
Organizations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current and future customer needs, meet customer requirements and customer expectations.
2. Leadership
Leaders establish unity of purpose and direction of the organization. They should create and maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully involved in achieving the organization’s objectives.
3. Involvement of People
People at all levels are the essence of an organization and their full involvement enables their abilities to be used for the organization’s benefit
4. Process Approach
A desired result is achieved more efficiently when activities and related resources are managed as a process
5. Systematic Approach to Management
Identifying, understanding and managing interrelated processes as a system contributes to the organization’s effectiveness in achieving its objectives
6. Continual Improvement
Continual improvement of the organization’s overall performance should be a permanent objective of the organization
7. Factual Approach to Decision Making
Effective decisions are based on the analysis of data and information
8. Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships
An organization and its suppliers are interdependent and a mutually beneficial relationship enhances the ability of both to create value

SIX SIGMA
BACKGROUND THEME
In 1920's the word 'sigma' has been used by mathematicians and engineers as a symbol for a unit of measurement in product quality variation
In the mid-1980's engineers in Motorola Inc in the USA used 'Six Sigma' an an informal name for an in-house initiative for reducing defects in production processes, because it represented a suitably high level of quality.
In the late-1980's Motorola extended the Six Sigma methods to its critical business processes, and significantly Six Sigma became a formalised in-house 'branded' name for a performance improvement methodology, ie., beyond purely 'defect reduction', in