ISO 9000:2000 is the newest version of the ISO 9000 family of standards. Unlike the 1994 version, it does not distinguish between servicing, testing and designing standards. It emphasizes quality improvement rather than quality control and briefly explains how to implement the Plan-Do-Check- Act (PDCA) cycle for improvement and the use of statistical techniques to improve the quality of process and product instead of controlling the quality of the output. The thesis explains why companies need to be certified and how to implement quality improvement programs.
The objective of this thesis is to provide generic certification guidelines for printed circuit board manufacturers, based on ISO 9000:2000 standard. This standardized framework could assist companies in achieving ISO 9000 certification. Since every manufacturer has its own proprietary set of controls on their processes, these generic guidelines provide an opportunity for the user to plug in their own information and to write their own processes.
Another objective of this thesis is to introduce a methodology for the implementation of the various methods and tools that can be applied for process improvement in printed circuit boards manufacturing
