Abstract

Quality in cartographic production is generating a big revolution in the way of processing, manipulating, managing, and using the geographical information, since it covers all management and elaboration processes of cartographic products and their databases. Nowadays, there is a great demand of geographical information in different areas since its use is not limited only to earth science experts. Problems emerge when the so called digital revolution occurs, which is the step to transform analogous maps in digital spatial databases, managed in computer software, what generates an absolute feeling of trust in the people who use these products, because they are more accessible, easy to handle and for generating other information from the original. Unfortunately, the fact that they are digitals does not guarantee the product quality. There are many factors that favor errors in the production and handling of geographical information such as: experts’ and users’ lack of knowledge, poor command of technical aspects, ignorance about databases genealogy, etc. Then, one of the solutions to this kind of problems is to keep users of these cartographical products informed about the technical specifications of the product they are purchasing; or else, they will never be sure whether a result from geographical data handling is valid. But, how can we do this? This is the proposal that is set out in the development of this work, the generation of a model that allows to determine the quality of the cartographic products based on international standards such as ISO 9001:2000 and four standards of TC/211 ISO 19113, 19114, 19138 and 19115. These standards altogether permit obtaining an integrated quality management system which permits controlling, knowing, managing and informing about the quality and characteristics of the cartographic product.