The practice of industrial quality control is often defined by ISO standards, which are considered to represent the state
of the art in relevant technology and science. At the same time industrial enterprises make great efforts to develop and implement
strategies for continuous quality improvement in all parts of their organizations, focussing on reducing waste and producing
better quality at lower costs in order to stay in business in a globally-competitive marketplace.
In the first part of this paper, the aims of some relevant ISO standards for controlling quality are compared with the aims
of a strategy for continuous quality improvement. As it turns out, the two aims are hardly compatible and using ISO standards
for controlling quality may constitute a major barrier for quality improvement.
The second part outlines procedures for quality control which support quality improvement and, therefore, are more appropriate
in modern industrial environments than the existing ISO standards which are essentially still based on the thinking surrounding
needs of the US armed forces during World War II and the first wave of progress in quality control over 60 years ago.