Principles of Quality Management

The 7 principles of quality management are not described in detail in ISO 9001 itself, but rather in the related standard ISO 9000 (Quality management systems – Fundamentals and vocabulary). This standard first defines fundamental concepts, followed by the quality management principles described here. Together, both are intended to enable organizations to “meet presented by an environment that is profoundly different from recent decades.”¹ It is important that none of the principles is to be considered in isolation, but rather that all seven are viewed as a whole. In addition, the standard emphasizes that no principle is more important than another.

Like the standard itself, the 7 QMS principles are not explicitly addressed to companies, but deliberately to organizations of any type and size. For each of the 7 principles, ISO 9000 sets out a statement, a rationale, as well as possible key benefits and actions. The following overview summarizes these core ideas in a condensed form:

1. Customer focus: The focus is on current and future customer requirements as well as on the early identification of relevant developments – with the aim of exceeding customer expectations. In this way, quality management creates the foundation for customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and long-term success.
2. Leadership: Leaders at all levels ensure that purpose, direction and strategic objectives are clearly defined and understood. They create the conditions under which people can become engaged in achieving quality objectives. In doing so, they promote unity of purpose, trust and performance.
3. Engagement of people: Competent, empowered and engaged people throughout the organization are essential to enhancing its capability to create and deliver value. It is ensured that people at all levels are involved and able to use their abilities for the benefit of the organization. This supports effective and efficient management and control.
4. Process approach: Consistent and predictable results are achieved more effectively and efficiently when activities are understood and managed as interrelated processes that function as a coherent system. Systematic consideration of interactions and dependencies improves the understanding of relationships and risks. This creates the conditions for effectively achieving objectives.
5. Improvement: Organizations must continually seek to improve their performance in order to respond to internal and external changes. Systematic improvement strengthens the ability to adapt and develop further, enabling opportunities to be seized and deviations to be corrected effectively. This ensures that quality management remains sustainably effective and adaptable.
6. Evidence-based decision making: Decisions are more likely to produce desired results when they are based on the analysis and evaluation of data and information. A systematic approach to facts increases objectivity, transparency and confidence in decisions. This allows causes to be better understood and actions to be derived in a targeted manner.
7. Relationship management: For sustained success, it is essential to manage relationships with relevant interested parties in a targeted manner and to further develop them. Such relationships help to secure the organization’s value contribution and thus support its long-term performance and stability.

Older publications in particular often refer to 8 principles of quality management instead of 7. This counting is not entirely incorrect, but simply outdated: as part of a comprehensive revision (referred to as a revision in the context of standards), the number was reduced in 2015 to the seven principles that are still valid today. In this process, the principle of the “Systematic Approach to Management” was integrated into the “Process Approach.”²

While the 7 quality management principles (QMS principles) are defined by ISO 9000, they simultaneously form an important foundation for the application of ISO 9001. This is already emphasized in the introduction to ISO 9001: “This International Standard is based on the quality management principles described in ISO 9000.”² When organizations demonstrate conformity with the requirements of ISO 9001 as part of audits, they show that the principles of quality management are taken seriously. At the same time, this creates the basis for sustained success.

ISO 9000 itself provides valuable guidance to support this by already listing possible actions for each of the QMS principles. For the first principle, “Customer Focus,” for example, possible actions include identifying direct and indirect customers, understanding requirements and expectations and communicating them within the organization, developing and delivering appropriate products and services and measuring customer satisfaction.

The standard is less specific when it comes to the choice of tools. However, this is not a weakness, but a deliberately chosen approach: since ISO 9000 and ISO 9001 are addressed to organizations of any type and size, they must cover a very wide range of different challenges and conditions. Whether, for a specific use case, a bulletin board, a spreadsheet or a specialized software solution is the tool of choice is therefore intentionally left open.

The most effective way to address these challenges is to use an end-to-end, integrated quality management software solution that also covers the requirements of Integrated Management Systems (IMS). Such software brings together all quality management activities – including requirements and process management or document control, among others – on a single, consistent data basis. This significantly reduces, or even eliminates, data silos, inconsistencies and manual effort.

At the same time, key information such as processes, work instructions or internal company policies is made available to everyone involved in a structured and transparent way. This is because the seven principles of quality management – and ISO 9001 itself – define quality management as a holistic system. An integrated software solution for quality management and Integrated Management Systems therefore represents the most reliable and efficient way to fully reflect and implement all principles of quality management.

¹ DIN EN ISO 9000:2015 – Quality management systems – Fundamentals and vocabulary, Clause 2.1

² DIN EN ISO 9001:2015 – Quality management systems – Requirements, Clause 0.2

³ DIN EN ISO 9000:2015 – Quality management systems – Fundamentals and vocabulary, National Foreword