ISO 22163 (IRIS) requirements explained: video brief

ISO 9001 in boxes, railway requirements around it

ISO 22163 prints the ISO 9001:2015 text in boxes and adds the railway requirements around it: supplements inside clauses 4 to 10, additional subclauses such as tender management and business continuity, three railway subclauses closing clause 8, and three informative annexes. This short film walks through the additions.

In clause 4, for example, ISO 22163 adds business planning within the context, a subclause on social responsibility, supplements on the scope and the system's processes, and the climate action changes of Amendment 1:2024. In practice that means a business plan feeding the quality objectives, a scope naming the railway activities and products, and a process list with owners. Similar supplements run through leadership, planning, support, operation, performance evaluation and improvement, with the emphasis on preventing and reducing defects and on product quality, including its safety aspects.

How IRIS assesses

IRIS Certification® Rev. 04 combines ISO 22163 with the IRIS Performance Assessment. The assessment looks at three fronts: enabling factors, through an evaluation matrix built on the ISO 22163 requirements; customer perception; and process performance. A certification body under contract with UNIFE carries out the audit, and the results go to the IRIS portal, where the IRIS Management Centre sets the performance level.

The standard applies to rolling stock manufacturers, equipment, component and spare-part suppliers, maintenance companies and, since IRIS Rev. 04, distributors and turnkey suppliers. The current edition is ISO 22163:2023 with Amendment 1:2024, which replaced ISO/TS 22163:2017, and a second edition is in preparation at ISO.

ISO 22163 is the ISO standard, the text of ISO 9001:2015 plus the railway requirements, while IRIS Certification® is UNIFE's scheme built on it, adding the performance assessment, its certification rules and the IRIS portal. No separate ISO 9001 certificate is needed, but the whole ISO 9001 system is. After a successful audit the IRIS Management Centre issues a quality performance level of Bronze, Silver or Gold each year from the organisation's performance results. Small organisations that meet the scheme's criteria can choose a simplified certification with reduced documentation, marked as simplified and without a performance level. The basic data, such as approval status, validity and scope, is published in the IRIS database, while the audit report and score are shared only with those the organisation chooses.