Comparing ISO 9000, Malcolm Baldrige, and the SEI CMM for Software

Book excerpt: For some companies, ISO 9000 and SEI CMM have become a mandatory requirement for doing business with other companies and governments. For other companies, the need for quality improvement has been recognized as an important element of long term survival. This book compares three quality management system assessment methodologies, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which was created by Public Law in 1987 to promote the improvement of quality in the US; the International Organization for standardization ISO 9000, a set of quality standards whose purpose is to standardize quality systems, implemented by organizations; and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for Software, a federally funded research and development center operated by Carnegie Mellon Univ. under contract and sponsorship by the US Dept. of Defense.