What is ISO Guide 83?
Guide 83 isn’t a standard in itself, but rather a guide to writing management system standards. At the moment Guide 83 is under consultation, but once formally adopted it will influence all management system standards writing and in turn the standards themselves.
Why did Guide 83 come about?
Standards users had complained that it can be confusing that a business’s operations can be influenced by several different management system standards that are written and organized in different ways.
For example, the same business could need to have a quality management system (meeting ISO 9001), an environmental management system (ISO 14001) and even an energy management system (ISO 50001.) Even though each of these standards has similar principles and aims, technical and administrative differences between them can mean the same management process could pass one and fail another, particularly if different auditors use different interpretations.
What approach does Guide 83 take?
Fortunately the ISO resisted the temptation to create its own standard to cover the way it creates management system standards — that really would have been confusing! Instead the guide lays down several principles, definitions, standard wordings and a fixed format that will be used for each new management system standard (see below).
This should work in two ways. Firstly, each standard will be in a format that will become familiar to users, meaning they will find it easier and quicker to check specific points in each new standard. Secondly, the fixed format will make sure each new standard covers all the important points and nothing is missed out during the development process.
How will Guide 83 take effect?
Once the Guide is formally adopted, it will be used in the creation of each new management system standards, meaning that over time the format and terminology will become more common and familiar.
Existing standards such as ISO 9001 won’t be affected immediately. Instead the Guide will be taken into account whenever these standards are revised or updated so that over time their format and content becomes closer to newly-created standards.
How does this affect me?
There won’t be any immediate change to the way you use management systems or have them audited for standards purposes. In the long term, it should make life easier as the standards will be in a more consistent format. In the short term, knowing the format a new management systems standard will be written in may be useful if you are contributing to consultations about proposed standards and want to know what points will be up for debate.
What is the format?
Once Guide 83 is in effect, each new management systems standard will have the following sections, with “XXX” replaced by the relevant term:
1 Scope
2 Normative references
3 Terms and definitions
4 Context of the organization
4.1 Understanding the organization and its context
4.2 Understanding the needs and expectations of interested parties
4.3 XXX management system
5 Leadership
5.1 General
5.2 Management commitment
5.3 Policy
5.4 Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities
6 Planning
6.1 Actions to address risks and opportunities
6.2 XXX objectives and plans to achieve them
7 Support
7.1 Resources
7.2 Competence
7.3 Awareness
7.4 Communication
7.5 Documented information
7.5.1 General
7.5.2 Create and update
7.5.3 Control of documented Information
8 Operation
8.1 Operational planning and control
9 Performance Evaluation
9.1 Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation
9.2 Internal Audit
9.3 Management review
10 Improvement
10.1 Nonconformity and corrective action
10.2 Continual improvement
