A quality management standard created by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). ISO establishes and defines effective quality systems for many manufacturing and service industries, but the ISO 9000 is the most well-known. Companies can be certified as meeting ISO 9000 standards by going through an evaluation process. There are 350,000 ISO-9000 certified organizations in over 150 countries. ISO is a standard that frequently is used in Europe, while in the U.S. companies are more likely to follow Total Quality Management procedures.