Taken from AutoWired's AutOpinion from Friday 14th May  2004 (www.autowired.co.uk)

Come next year, it is estimated, four out of every five cars built in the world will have been constructed by a company that is ISO 9000 compliant.

The fifth car will probably be a Toyota.

Years ago, the carmaker achieved ISO 9000 compliancy in one of its Japanese plants but never renewed it. It found it to be of no value. In Derbyshire, the Burnaston plant does comply with the standard but also has other Japanese standards of its own in place.

Other critics of the international management standard say it has little relevance and little value and proves only that organisations can work to pass the compliance without applying the theory to their businesses. Some, like John Seddon, author of 'Freedom from Command and Control' (published by Vanguard Education) says the standard simply contains bad management theory, anyway.

He calls it an economic disease and accuses Britain of perpetuating it across the world. He describes it as having been a pyramid sale of unprecedented scale, because it encourages users to insist that their suppliers achieve compliance - 'you comply or we won't buy'. In the three major economies in Europe, ISO 9000 is in decline.

As the sternest critic of the standard, no doubt he will be smirking this week to have read that Toyota reported a 55% increase in net income for the year to March 31 and recorded a net income of £5.74bn on rising sales in all markets. Without ISO 9000, Toyota is predicting sales of 7.02m of its vehicles this year.

The Automotive EMC network feel this is quite a controversial point of view and would welcome any readers take on this?  Is ISO 9000 a redundant quality standard or still an essential business requirement?  Comments to news@autoemc.net