Publication of ISO 22163:2023 Railway Quality Management System

Publication of ISO 22163:2023

The new global standard for quality management systems in the railway sector, “ISO 22163:2023 Railway applications - Railway quality management system - ISO 9001:2015 and specific requirements for application in the railway sector” was published by The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on July, 25th 2023.

ISO 22163:2023 becomes an official ISO standard, to replace the Technical Specification of ISO/TS 22163:2017. It contains the requirements of the ISO 9001:2015 Standard and the supplemental rail-specific requirements.

“The IRIS Performance Assessment” - by UNIFE

Following the publication of the specific rail requirements for business management systems under ISO 22163, UNIFE will soon publish the IRIS Certification Performance Assessment:2023.

ISO 22163:2023 standard and IRIS Certification Performance Assessment constitute the IRIS Certification® Rev.04 system, which will come into force as of 1st January 2024. More information on the transition timeline and possibilities will be provided soon.

The IRIS Performance Assessment:2023 is owned by UNIFE. It contains all the relevant rules relating to assessment methodology and the certification process.

The IRIS Certification technology refers to the IRIS Portal, database and Audit-Tool web application. It plays an integral part of the IRIS Certification scheme used for recording and evaluating data as well as generating standardized reports of IRIS Certification audits.

Major changes to ISO 22163 :2023

As compared to ISO/TS 22163:2017, the main changes to the ISO 22163:2023 standard are as follows:

- the scope has been simplified;
- the terms and definitions in Clause 3 have been revised;
- the previous subclause 6.4 “Business planning” has been moved to 4.1.1;
- a new subclause 4.1.2 on “Social responsibility” has been added;
- subclause 7.2.1 “Competence - Supplemental” has been revised;
- the previous subclause 8.11 “Innovation management” has been moved to 8.1.1.1;
- “Project review management” has been separated from the previous subclause 8.1.3.7 “Project communications management” as a new subclause 8.1.3.11;
- the previous subclauses 8.1.4 “Configuration management” and 8.1.5 “Change management” have been combined in 8.1.4 “Configuration management and change control”;
- product safety requirements have been integrated in the quality requirements;
- reliability, availability, maintainability, safety and life cycle costing requirements have been clarified in 8.8;
- the notion of performance indicators versus key performance indicators has been added;
- the performance indicators have been revised;
- Annex A on “List of processes” has been added;
- Annex B on “Subordinate concept of requirements for products and services” has been added;
- Annex C on “Performance indicators” has been added.

Webinar by UNIFE

On September 15 at 10:30 at 10:30 Central European Standard Time, there will be an IRIS Certification® Rev.04 Launch webinar host by UNIFE’s IRIS Management Centre.

DQS Related Services

• DQS provides UNIFE recognized ISO 22163 (IRIS) Certification service.
• DQS provides training courses to help clients understand the standard.