As feedback from the industries, ISO certification lost its credibility due to many reasons.

One of the reasons was that the audit seemed to be not strintigent and the facts were not documented in audit report. Partly due to auditee's bargaining power to change certification body and their requests that "tough" (I mean good auditors that surface facts and do value-added audits) auditors be restrained from doing audit at their companies.

The one that communicates with certification body normally is the Quality Management Representative, and incidence mentioned above happens!

To "ensure" this do not happen again, corrective actions has to be taken, or preventive actions or contingency plans (let say it does not happen but it could happen) should be seriously considered and plan ahead.

I am of the opinion that Quality/Environment/OHSAS/... Management Systems Standards should impose more stringent requirements on "Management Representative" to achieve this.

Instead of appoint a member of "management" (which normally are Quality Managers, who normally lack "independence" due to working relationship with other managers and corporate politics), should SPECIFICALLY requires that this person from the "Board of Directors" with executive responsibility (though many would give lots of excuse that it is impossible for Directors to attend to audits whole day).

As the Director is "accountable" (not only "responsible") to the BOD and Shareholders, his personal involvement throughout the audit (from confirming audit dates, reviewing auditors' competence and conflict of interest, and risk; to personally accompany and attend to auditors' on site audit) "could" help preventing the problems mentioned above (as with his presence, the auditor can audit without influence from the auditee personnel and has to report facts as he found instead of cover up due to fears mentioned above).

Then I think we could not only regain credibility of certification but help all the certified companies improve!

Your views are important, please share with me (and us?) !

pinpin:thanks::thanx::magic:

As feedback from the industries, ISO certification lost its credibility due to many reasons. I assume you mean ISO 9001. Is that correct? What feedback from what source are you referring to? What industries?

I assume you mean ISO 9001. Is that correct? What feedback from what source are you referring to? What industries?

Not only 9001, from auditees and auditors, from different industries.

Not only 9001, from auditees and auditors, from different industries.

Can you tell us a little bit more? Any articles, papers, etc, that support your assertion?

Stijloor.

Can you tell us a little bit more? Any articles, papers, etc, that support your assertion?

Stijloor.

Oh my God, no articles, papers, just verbal.

Oh my God, no articles, papers, just verbal.

:sarcasm:Oh, kinda like the location of Noah's Ark, the Lochness Monster and Holy Grail?

Pard, you need to get your facts straight and have something more to fall back on than a greenhouse gas emission from whoever.

This is from your Profile and you hit the nail on the head.......

Biography
the more i know the more i don't know

As feedback from the industries, ISO certification lost its credibility due to many reasons. I don't think ISO 9001 has lost what it never really had. It hasn't changed in all the years I've been involved with ISO 9001.

I'm not sure what is meant by credibility, though. All it says is that a company had, at the time of the audit, certain 'quality' systems and the systems *appear* to be followed. Nothing more, nothing less. At every audit, the auditor will (should) tell the client the audit is a *sample* and does not ensure that problems do not exist. It's their 'out' in case anything goes wrong.

If you want to really get into ISO 9001 and what it 'means', look to the aspect that audits are paid for by the company being audited. Just as in financial audits, there is a serious conflict of interest whether they admit it or not. You might want to look at how many companies fail registration audits. I am sure there's a poll in a thread here about how many audits it took for a company to pass their registration audit. I did look around a bit and didn't find it. If I remember correctly, a few had to have a second audit, but that was about it. I should also point out here that in my eyes, having come into quality assurance in the military electronics design and manufacturing, ISO 9001 is nothing but the most basic business system 'requirements' and any company in business should be doing these in one way or another anyway.

Here is an old poll you may want to look at. Is ISO 9001 Cresting? Is a rebellion in the works? (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=4566). This thread was started in 2002. Here it is, 6 years later, and nothing has really changed. On the other hand, I haven't really looked at statistics such as new registrations/year. It has me kinda bored these days. Even the 2008 version of ISO 9001 is little more than spelling and grammar issues (but is being sold as 'clarification' issues).

And even today - Companies *almost* always get registered because one or more customers require it, or the company sees ISO 9001 registration as something their competitors have so it's done to ensure parity. Now and again, some do it because the company does really believe ISO 9001 registration will improve the 'quality' of their product (which, by the way, was not really the original intent of ISO 9001). But this just brings me back to ISO 9001 being nothing but the most basic business system 'requirements' and any company in business should be doing these in one way or another anyway.

Just some thoughts.

Instead of appoint a member of "management" (which normally are Quality Managers, who normally lack "independence" due to working relationship with other managers and corporate politics), should SPECIFICALLY requires that this person from the "Board of Directors" with executive responsibility (though many would give lots of excuse that it is impossible for Directors to attend to audits whole day).

Pinpin, you make a number of assumptions in your post. Focussing on the ones re. your proposal: 1. That the QM isn't or can't be independent. And 2. That every organisation has a Board of Directors.

Your proposal would contradict the very generic nature of the Standard.

I'm guessing this would work in the company you presumably work for/in and the ones you know of. But it's a limited view. To be as rigidly specific as this would make it impossible for any organisation that does not have a Board of Directors to comply. (eg, It would disqualify at least half of my smaller clients at a single stroke)

There's a good reason IMO why ISO 9001 is so generic in nature - so that it can apply to a wide range of organisations, of all sizes.

PS: I share the other posters' reservations of taking unsupported verbal anecdotal evidence as fact. One wouldn't (or shouldn't!) accept such as supporting the principle of decisions based on fact.