Since 1987, when the International Organisation for Standardisation first published the ISO 9000 series of quality standards, the world-wide take up of quality certification to the ISO 9000 standard (QCert) has been increasing rapidly. At the end of 1998, more than 270,000 firms in over 143 countries, will be certified to the standard, an increase of 48,000 on the previous year (ISO, 1999). The