July 7, 2000; Kyoto, Japan: At its meeting today in Kyoto, Subcommittee (SC) 2, Quality Systems, of ISO Technical Committee 176,Quality Management and Quality Assurance, voted in plenary session to elevate the drafts of ISO 9001:2000, Quality management systems-Requirements, and ISO 9004:2000, Quality management systems-Guidelines for performance improvements,

to the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) stage. In addition, SC 1, Concepts and Terminology, voted to elevate ISO 9000:2000, Quality management systems-Fundamentals and vocabulary, to FDIS status.

   There was only one negative vote cast by a participating member body (P-member) on the elevation of ISO 9001 (Japan) to FDIS and one on ISO 9004 (France), despite the fact that there were nine votes of disapproval on each draft in the balloting concluded in April. This reflects the extensive

work accomplished during the past several weeks to fully address the comments of the P-members as well as an extensive process during the meetings in Kyoto to ensure that all comments were fully discussed and resolved to the

greatest extent possible. All of the US concerns were resolved to the satisfaction of the delegation.

   The FDIS stage for an ISO standard involves a circulation to the P-members, for an up-or-down vote on approval of the FDIS for publication as an International Standard. Unlike earlier stages, members do not provide comments with their votes, since no further revisions are to be made. The three FDISs will be edited over the coming weeks by the subcommittees in cooperation with the ISO Central Secretariat and are expected to be available for ballot by the P-members in early September. The target date for issuance of the revised standards remains mid-November.