Global supply chain security risks arising from natural or man-made disasters have become one of the main challenges of international business today. Well-documented incidents such as earthquakes, hurricanes, Asian tsunamis, terror and criminal activity highlight the urgent need for a systematic and coordinated solution. With this in mind, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed a series of documents for human, cargo, infrastructure and equipment (including transport methods) safety incidents to prevent potentially damaging effects in the supply chain.

ISO28000 was developed and proposed in response to the needs of the transportation and logistics industry for common safety management standards, with the ultimate goal of improving the overall safety of the supply chain.

As a new management system specification, for the first time, it provides a framework for organizations that operate or rely on a link in the supply chain. It helps all sectors of the industry audit security risks and implement control and risk mitigation arrangements to manage potential security threats and impacts in the supply chain. It is managed in the same way as other fundamental business principles such as quality, safety and customer satisfaction.

ISO28000:2007 is compatible with ISO9001:2000 (quality system) and ISO14001:2004 (environmental system) and is designed to help integrate quality, environmental and supply chain safety management systems within an organization.

This specification is a management system based on planning-implementation-inspection-action (improvement), imitating the recognized ISO14001 standard. This means that organizations already familiar with risk-based approaches can apply a similar approach when analyzing supply chain security risks and threats.

It is compatible with and complements security proposals from governments and international customs agencies, including: the World Customs Organization's Framework of Standards for Supply Chain Security and Simplification, the European Community's Regulations to Strengthen Supply Chain Security - Authorized Economic Operators (AEOs) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Proposal - Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism.