Background
| 1991 | International QA Institute (IQAI) was established as a non-profit voluntary organization by Akio Miura in October 1991 to cope with the urgent need of fostering ISO 9000 series quality management systems Registrars in Japan and training their Auditors, with cooperation of some of his students as charter members. The motivation was that Akio Miura was nominated by Institute of Quality Assurance (IQ A) in UK as the first (and only one even now) ISO Lead Auditor Training Course Instructor in Japan. |
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| 1992 through 1993 | In 1992, IQAI was nominated as the representative of IQA (present IRCA) in UK for registration of ISO auditors. With this function, IQAI had helped major Registrars in Japan by training their quality system auditors or sending qualified auditors to them, in order to facilitate their certification activities. Among the Registrars backed by IQAI are major international registrars such as LRQA, BVQI, DNV, ABS, SGS, and major Japanese registrars such as JIA-QA, LIA-QA, JHIA-QA, JIC-QA, KHK, JQA, JET, JMAM, and JSA. In conjunction with this, in the period of 1991 to 1993, IQAI also supported the Japan Accreditation Board (JAB) in its starting accreditation and certification schemes by providing guidance and sending several members for its accreditation assessments.
In the meantime, the charter members of IQAI formed a study group in August 1992, called Japan ISO-QA Society (Japan ISO-MS Society after 1995) ? forums for information exchange and workshops on International Standards and management issues for various industrial sectors, and IQAI had supported it since its foundation. Key members of IQAI had played an important role in the ctivities of all study |
| 1995 through 1996 | In September 1995, IQAI was re-organized to strengthen its foundation to cope with the changing global circumstances and social needs in the integrated management system of quality, environment and safety. IQAI has got certified to ISO 9001 by DNV in March 1996, and maintained certification three years until March1999. (The scope of certification was: Provision of Conformance Audits, and Design and Delivery of Courses for Quality Assurance/Management and Auditor Training, and Consulting Services in Quality Assurance/Management System Establishment.)
In August 1996, about one year after re-organization, IQAI was nominated as a representative of the Quality Audit Division (QAD) of American Society for Quality (ASQ) in Japan. At the same time, IQAI has started the ASQ certification examinations for the CQA/CQE/CRE in Tokyo, while promoting the activities of the QAD of ASQ in Japan with Akio Miura as its International Regional Councilor of the QAD. |
| 1997 through 2005 | Besides the above activities, IQAI had been attending the plenary meetings of International Auditor and Training Course Accreditation (IATCA), at first as a Registration Agency of IQA in UK, and thereafter as an internationally independent Associate Member voluntarily representing the QAD of ASQ, and submitted numbers of proposals to its Working Groups to establish auditor-related international rules and procedures. Many of such proposals were adopted by the Executive Committee consisting of RAB of the USA, IQA and IRCA of UK, and QSA and JAS-ANZ of Australia. In this connection, in 1997, Akio Miura, Chairman of IQAI, was nominated by IATCA as a member of Consultant Certification Study Group in IATCA, and submitted the proposal of consultant qualification procedure and criteria, developed and implemented by IQAI in 1995 for the establishment of their international rules.
As the Associate Member of IATCA, IQAI had recommended IATCA’s Executive Committee to adopt the ASQ CQA exam for the international auditor qualification, representing the QAD of ASQ and from the internationally independent standpoint (because it was a big issue there that the level of ISO registrar auditors is very low in almost all countries and needed to be raised). IQAI had also supported the leading members of IATCA, such as RAB, IQA, IRCA,QSA and JAS-ANZ. During the course, IQAI helped Japanese Accreditation Board (JAB) and JRCA (Japanese Auditor Registration Body). For JRCA, IQAI fully helped it get internationally recognized by giving appropriate advice until they finally passed the IATCA‘s peer review. In 2005, IQAI left IATCA judging that IQAI had fully accomplished its mission in international contribution activities through IATCA, and decided to volunteer only through RAB that had been serving as the chair of the IATCA. |
| 2007 | In March 2007, IQAI was re-organized to carry out its volunteering activities more effectively. |
| 2009 | IQAI has been registered with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government under the Law of Japan as the Special Non-Profit Organization to accomplish its social mission. |