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Standard revision

The ISO 9001 revision: what to expect, and what not to do yet

A new edition of ISO 9001 has been in development for some time. Here is what is likely to change, and why restructuring your management system now would be premature.

Published

ISO 9001:2015 has been under review, and a revised edition is anticipated. Until the final standard is published, any consultant offering to make you 'compliant with the new ISO 9001' is selling you work against a moving target.

What is reasonably clear from the committee direction is that the high-level structure shared across management system standards will be retained, that climate change consideration is already in the standard via the 2024 amendment, and that the emphasis on risk-based thinking is not going away.

Our advice for organizations certified to ISO 9001:2015 is unchanged: keep the system running, keep improving it, and wait. When a new edition is published, accreditation bodies set a transition period — historically three years — and we will contact every certified client with a transition plan well inside it.

If you are certifying for the first time this year, certify against ISO 9001:2015. A certificate issued now remains valid for its full three-year cycle, and transition happens at a surveillance or recertification audit rather than as a separate exercise.