Forensic Systems Engineering

4Performance Management: ISO 9001

CHAPTER MENU

1. 4.1 Background of ISO 9000
2. 4.1.1 ISO 9001 in the United States
3. 4.1.2 Structure of ISO 9000:2005
4. 4.1.3 The Process Approach
5. 4.2 Form and Substance
6. 4.2.1 Reference Performance Standards
7. 4.2.2 Forensics and the Paper Trail
8. Credits
9. References

The major assumption of this book is that there is a causal relation between a process and the product or service resulting from this process. Thus, the operation of the process and its performance are essential to forensic systems analysis. The management of performance is a critical component of operations and may well be the focus of forensic investigation. Forensic analysts, fundamentally auditors, will compare what is to what should be, which implies that a standard of performance is required—indeed, it is a tool of the trade. The most commonly used such standard is the international standard, ANSI/ISO/ASQ. Q9001‐2015. American National Standard: Quality Management Systems—Requirements, also known simply as ISO 9001.

ISO 9001 is not without controversy. Across the nation, you find blue banners stretched across the porticos of business after business, proclaiming their certification. Across the nation, you find article after article in the technical journals denouncing the Standard as an expensive and impotent charade. Critics claim that ISO 9001 is not specific enough to provide performance excellence. Champions of ISO 9001 reply that, on the contrary, the failure to be specific is actually ...