Nigel Howard Croft

Education

Nigel Croft attended Oakwood Comprehensive School, Rotherham from 1967–1972 and subsequently Thomas Rotherham College (formerly Rotherham Grammar School). First in his family to go to university, he graduated with First Class Honours in Natural Sciences and with an Honorary Senior Scholarship from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge in 1977. After a short period in industry, he returned to academia to carry out postgraduate research in Metallurgy and Materials Science at Sheffield University under the tutelage of Prof Sir Graeme Davies. He received a PhD in 1981 for his work on the fracture characteristics and mechanisms in cast steel, and was awarded the Brunton Medal for Research Excellence. In 1981, he received a Harkness Fellowship from the Commonwealth Fund, to conduct post-doctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, on the low temperature impact strength of welds in microalloyed steel after induction bending for use in high pressure gas pipelines.

Career

Following a family tradition, Nigel Croft began his career in the local South Yorkshire steel industry, at British Steel Corporation’s Special Steels Division in Rotherham. He began work in the quality control department in 1974, first as a student apprentice, and later as a Graduate Metallurgist. After returning from post-doctoral research work in the USA, he joined J.P. Kenny and Partners as a Senior Metallurgist, working on supplier evaluations for high pressure gas pipelines in the North Sea and elsewhere. In 1984 he married Naila Diniz (also a PhD metallurgist from Sheffield University), and emigrated to Brazil. The two worked in the Diniz family-owned specialty steel company Eletrometal S.A. until the company was sold in the mid-1990s. Nigel’s interest in Quality Management began during this time, when he coordinated the adaptation of Eletrometal’s quality management system to meet the requirements of the ISO 9002 standard (now superseded), in 1992.

Nigel Croft currently sits on the Board of a number of organizations around the world, including the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) - UK, and the Social Accountability Accreditation Service for SA 8000 (SAAS) - U.S.A. In 2011 he was appointed Visiting Professor at the Business School of UUM (University of Northern Malaysia)

Contribution to International Standards

As a member of the Brazilian delegation to ISO/TC176, the ISO Technical Committee responsible for Quality Management and the ISO 9000 family of standards, Nigel Croft was responsible for coordinating the implementation of and transition to the year 2000 revision of those standards. After over 15 years of active involvement with ISO/TC 176, he was appointed as Chairman of its Subcommittee SC 2 in 2010, with responsibility for the ISO 9001 requirements standard and the ISO 9004 guidelines standard, among others. ISO/TC 176/SC 2 has participation from over 80 countries represented via their National Standards Bodies, as well as liaison organizations representing industry groups and other interested parties. There are now over 1,000,000 organizations worldwide that are certified as meeting ISO 9001, which sets out requirements for organizations to be able to demonstrate their ability to consistently provide their customers with conforming products. During his tenure, he has provided overall leadership for the major revision of ISO 9001, published in 2015, the ISO Technical Specification ISO/TS 9002:2016 (Guidance on the Application of ISO 9001:2015), and the ISO guide "ISO 9001:2015 for small enterprises - What to do?", also published in 2016. In 2017, Croft has been awarded the American Society for Quality’s Freund-Marquardt medal, with a citation that reads “For his passion, dedication and leadership in the application of quality management principles to the development, promotion and implementation of quality management system standards on a global scale, for over twenty years”.

Publications