ISO 9001 certifications top 1 million mark

The principal highlights of The ISO Survey of Certifications – 2009 are that ISO 9001, the global benchmark for quality management, has topped one million certifications, and that certifications to ISO 22000:2005 for food safety management systems, and to ISO/IEC 27001:2005 for information security management systems have rocketed.

ISO comments in the introduction to the survey that the 8 percent increase in ISO 9001 certificates, compared with the 3 percent increase in 2008, “confirms the importance of ISO 9001 in the global supply chains and as the pioneering model on which subsequent management system standards have been built and flourish.”

Safe food supply chains are a global priority. ISO 22000:2005 certifications reached at least 13 881 certificates in 127 countries and economies – a rise of 69 percent.

The increasing importance organizations give to information security was demonstrated by the 40 percent increase in ISO/IEC 27001 certifications, which reached 12,934 in 117 countries.

ISO secretary-general Rob Steele comments: “Each year, the release of the latest ISO Survey is an eagerly awaited event as the primary source of information on the importance of ISO’s management system standards to the global economy. For the first time, the new edition is being published on a CD-ROM containing Excel files of the surveys from the first in 1993 up to the end of 2009. Making this data available in one place will facilitate comparison and extrapolation and make the survey an even more useful business tool.”