TABLE OF CONTENTS This heading implies there are other requirements that do not relate to the product that may form part of the customer requirements. However, ISO 9000 defines a product as the result of a process and includes services among these. It is therefore difficult to imagine any aspect of customer requirements that would not relate to the product or service that is being provided. Requirements related to the product or service could include:
Characteristics that the product is required to exhibit, i.e. the inherent characteristics.
Price and delivery requirements.
Procurement requirements that constrain the source of certain components, materials or the conditions under which personnel may work.
Management requirements related to the manner in which the project will be managed, the product developed, produced and supplied.
Security requirements relating to the protection of information.
Financial arrangements for the deposit of bonds, payment conditions, invoicing, etc.
Commercial requirements such as intellectual property, proprietary rights, labelling, warranty, resale, copyright, etc.
Personnel arrangements such as access to the organization s facilities by customer personnel and vice versa.
A process for determining product requirements should be designed so that it takes as its input the identified need for a product and passes this through several stages where requirements from various sources are determined, balanced and confirmed as the definitive requirements that form the basis for product realization. The input can either be...
