The international organization for standardization (ISO) is the specialized international agency for standardization and at present comprises the national standards bodies of 91 countries. ISO is the acronym for international organization for standardization, located in Geneva Switzerland.

ISO 9000 is a set of five worldwide standards that establish requirements for the management of quality. Unlike product standards these standards are for quality management system. They are being used by twelve nation European economic community to provide a universal framework for quality assurance primarily through a system of internal and external audits. The purpose is to ensure that a certified company has a quality system in place that will enable it to meet its published quality standards. The ISO standards are generic in that they supply to all functions and all industries from banking to chemical manufacturing. They have been described as the one size fits all standards.