With regard to management systems, a process is: a number of reproducible, interacting activities that together convert an input to an output. Any activity, or set of activities, that uses resources to transform inputs to outputs can be considered as a process.

For organizations to function effectively, they have to identify and manage numerous interrelated and interacting processes. Often, the output from one process will directly form the input into the next process. The systematic identification and management of the processes employed within an organization and particularly the interactions between such processes is referred to as the “process approach”.

The intent of this International Standard is to encourage the adoption of the process approach to manage an organization .

Monitoring the satisfaction of interested parties requires the evaluation of information relating to the perception of interested parties as to the extent to which their needs and expectations have been met.

An organization is a system of interlinked processes
The standard is geared at managing and improving those processes
Key processes – those that lead to products and services- must be identified
Methods to measure and control these processes must now be included

This example of the process model is included in the ISO 9001 Standard.

The five clauses are all found on the process model:

• Management Responsibility
• Measurement Analysis and Improvement
• Product Realization
• Resource Management make a cycle

The most important input to this cycle is customer requirements.

The output of the cycle is customer satisfaction and continual improvement of the quality system.