Which of the following tools demands involvement by upper executives, in order to integrate quality into the business system and avoid delegation of quality functions to junior administrators?

Question

Options

• AISO 90012000
• BBenchmarking
• CSEI-CMM
• DSix Sigma

• A
  93% (39)
• C
  2% (1)
• D
  5% (2)

Explanation

ISO 9001:2000 mandates explicit top management commitment as a core requirement - Clause 5 of the standard (Management Responsibility) requires senior executives to personally establish quality policy, set objectives, conduct management reviews, and demonstrate active leadership in the quality management system. This is not optional; the standard is designed to prevent quality from being "delegated down" and siloed away from strategic decision-making.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• B. Benchmarking is a performance comparison technique - it has no formal governance structure requiring executive involvement.
• C. SEI-CMM is a process maturity framework focused on software development capability levels; while it involves organizational process improvement, it does not specifically mandate executive ownership to prevent delegation.
• D. Six Sigma does use executive "Champions," but its primary focus is on statistical defect reduction and project methodology (DMAIC), not on institutionalizing executive responsibility to prevent junior delegation as a design principle.

Memory tip: Think of ISO 9001's "9001" as a chain of command - quality starts at the top and flows down. The "Management" in its Clause 5 title is the giveaway: no other option has a clause that literally forces the C-suite to own quality.

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