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BSI British Standards has announced the forthcoming publication of BS EN ISO 9001: 2008.

Global established quality framework ISO 9001 has undergone a rigorous review by industry experts and the updated version will be available from BSI British Standards on 17 November 2008.

ISO 9001 is currently used by over 950,000 organisations across 170 countries.

It helps all sectors and sizes to succeed through improved customer satisfaction, staff motivation and continual improvement.

BS EN ISO 9001 specifies requirements for a quality management system for an organisation which needs to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide a product that meets customer and applicable regulatory requirements or aims to enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system.

Mike Low, director of BSI British Standards, said: "In these challenging economic times adoption of ISO 9001 could assist with increasing competitiveness, driving down costs, managing risk more effectively or improving customer satisfaction."

Users of ISO 9001: 2000 will have up to two years to upgrade their systems to ISO 9001: 2008.

All accredited certifications issued will be to ISO 9001:2008 by the end of 2009.

By the end of 2010, existing certification issued to ISO 9001:2000 will no longer be valid and customers will need the revised version of ISO 9001 in order to keep their certificates up to date.