I thought I'd share this in case I save someone else the hearburn I'm feeling right now...

Our company is registered to ISO 9000. My business stream does automotive business, so we had our QS9000 audit last summer. Our registrar happens to be VERY VERY VERY slow in issuing certificates, we did not get it until late December. The certificate showed an expiration date of 12-31-2002. FYI our main office (we're an umbrella from the main office) had their ISO 9K2k upgrade audit in October and received a certificate also expiring on 12/31/200 for the 1994 std (?!!!)

We've been contacting them to get it updated, but their office staff never relayed messages. Finally I was able to speak last Wednesday with the main auditor at the office who promised to investigate.

Well, I just spoke with him. He says that their automotive dept. has it from the AIAG that QS cannot stand alone as a certificate. In other words, that we need to upgrade the ISO 9000:19994 portion of our quality system to meet ISO 9000:2000 via an additional audit. In addition since our main office's ISO 9k2K certificate is in paperwork limbo, they want to expedite this audit so both certificates can be issued to the same date. SO they want to come and visit in two weeks. TWO WEEKS!!! :mad:

Yes, this registrar STINKS with big capital letters but mgmt here likes them because they come, barely look, and rubber stamp us as passing (ugh - more heartburn!).

Moral of the story - find out what your registrar's policy is for the ISO portion of your QS certificate - SOON!

Here are the latest rules from the last sanctioned interpretation to QS from www.qs-9000.org

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R8 Expiration of ISO 9001:1994 and ISO 9002:1994 on December 15, 2003 - certificate language for QS-9000 certificates to be recognized after December 15, 2003 (07/01/02)



Any new or renewed QS-9000 certificate issued after July 1, 2002 shall not reference ISO 9001:1994 or ISO 9002:1994 other than in one of the following statements which must be included on the certificate: “Registered to QS-9000:1998 (Based on and including ISO 9001:1994)” or “Registered to QS-9000:1998 (Based on and including ISO 9002:1994)”. All QS-9000 certificates with dates extending beyond December 15, 2003 shall comply with this wording by December 15, 2003. [All other aspects of Appendices G.A.13, I.18, and I.23 shall remain in effect.]



The Registrar may provide a letter to suppliers indicating that the above statement confirms the supplier is certified to ISO 9001:1994 or ISO 9002:1994 until December 15, 2003.



QS-9000:1998 certificates shall not reference ISO 9001:2000. Note: ISO 9001:2000 requires a separate certification.



QS-9000:1998 certificates shall not show an ending date later than December 14, 2006. Note: the current version of QS-9000 (TE supplement) and the current version of the semi-conductor supplement to QS-9000 shall also remain in effect until December 14, 2006.

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Does your certificate comply with the above wording? Sounds like they interpreted the above as they cannot issue a certificate with a date beyond 2002. They should be able to give you a QS certificate as worded above and a second for ISO 1994.

If they won't help you out and it is an issue, look at switching registrars through an assumption audit. Find a new registrar that will be more willing to work with you. They can take over your QS certificate with a desk audit and single visit. There is no excuse for taking 4-6 months to issue a certificate. We usually get them pushed through in 2-3 weeks.

If you have not paid your bill yet while the paperwork is in limbo, you may want to threaten to withhold it - this tends to wake up registrars.

I can give you names of a couple registrar contacts that could help you with an assumption if you want to go that route. E-mail if you need the info.

Tom

Tom,

Thanks a BUNCH for your response! I was glad to see it ...as I check this board from my snowed in home in central NJ...

I was unable to find the information you quoted in the qs9000.org website. Where exactly is it? I'd really like to have this info handy when I talk to my registrar tomorrow.

Don't I wish I could change registrars! However I have no control over this decision right now but will be lobying hard to change them. The audit they did last fall bordered on incompetent, and their lack of responsiveness to my requests is ridiculous. But current management likes them precisely because they're crappy auditors. (I could go on a major rant now !!!)

I'll keep the board posted on how this saga continues...

Tom - Nevermind - just realized I needed to scroll down to item # R8 on the sanctioned interpretations, following the link you gave.

I also found this link to another registrar explaining the changeover & including the text you showed me. I figure a competitor's website should help my arguments with my registrar. In case anyone else wants it, here it is:

http://www.bvqina.com

Wish me luck!

Glad to help. I've run into a couple incompetent registrars myself. Who is yours? You can e-mail me if you don't want to be accused of registrar bashing in public. We are looking at spreading some of our client business out to registrars we have not been using much and want to make sure we stay away from the bad ones.

Tom

Strong consideration should be given to searching for another registrar. Thet were hired and they can be fired. No reason to have to tolerate that.

All the verbage in the previous replies is right on. Verbage is exactly what our new cert states.

Jay

Good Luck:frust:

Spoke with my registrar yesterday, and he clarified that QS9000 is not a stand alone document, that it needs to be accompanied by an ISO 9000 registration. And since ISO 9000:1994 is expired, we have to upgrade to the 2000 version. Huh?

Reviewing the text of the AIAG interpretations (copied in a previous post) , it appears that they are extending the ISO 9000:1994 date to December 15, 2003.

I'm a big confused - didn't ISO 9k:1994 expire last year? And why would a QS9000 registration certificate NOT be a stand alone document?

Jay - I totally agree with you, however my hands are tied at the moment and I can't change the registrar. Believe me when I say I will be lobying hard to change them but that will take time.

The 1994 revisions of ISO 9000 expire this year on December 15th. They gave 3 years from the date of issue of the 2000 revision (12/15/00) for upgrade.

They will not be able to issue you a certificate for ISO 9001: 1994 with a expiration date after 12/15/03. After this date you will no longer be registered to ISO 9000 if you don't upgrade. QS certificates can be issued up until 12/15/2006 with the wording from the interpretation.

If you do not upgrade by 12/15/2003 you will not technically be certified to ISO, even if you maintain QS. You can have a QS certificate, which is based on ISO 94, so you would still be compliant. It is confusing very confusing.

You will need to upgrade eventually. Your options would be:

A. Upgrade to ISO 9001: 2000 first and also maintain QS. This would probably require two audits.

B. Upgrade to ISO/TS 16949 which is based on ISO 9001: 2000.

Even if you don't get an upgrade done by the end of the year I would guess that your customers would still accept your QS certification.

Tom

So I finally found out why the registrar insists our ISO9k 1994 expired already.

As I'd stated earlier, the QS group is a subdivision of a larger group. Apparently when we were audited to QS 14 months ago, the certification process was somehow linked to this larger group. This larger group's ISO 1994 registration expired on Dec'02, so therefore ours automatically also expired. When the larger gropu had their ISO 9k2k upgrade audit last Fall, we specifically asked for the impact on our QS certirficate and were told there was none.

Has anyone else seen linked certificates like I've described?

Mind you we have not ANY other audit (surveillance otherwise) since the certification audit 14 months ago, so my suspicion is that they want the $$ from the renewal audit they claim we need. But I digress...

Hmmmmmmmm.... No audit in 14 months! Think I have a problem with that.

My suggestion is the same as before! Dump the Registrar.

Sorry just my opinion!


Good Luck!:confused:

Sounds like you were registered under a corporate scheme where they sample from multiple sites with the same basic system. How many different sub-components are there in your company? Was your corporate office certified to QS-9000 also, or just ISO 9000 1994?

The advantage of the corporate scheme is that it allows audits to be much cheaper. Only a percentage of sites needs to be audited. A disadvantage is that if one site fails or if the certificate expires, they all fail/expire. It is possible that the rules would allow you to go 14 months without a visit, but you would have to have MANY sites under the same certificate. If there are only a few they must all be visited. We are working with a company now with 350+ sites. Only 30-40 will be sampled on the first audit (I forget the exact number), so it will be possible for a particular site to go years without a ISO auditor visit.

It sounds like you may not have been included on the scope of the 2000 upgrade. Something still sounds strange since they CAN issue a QS certificate alone if it is still valid.

I had a similar situation a few years ago. One of my clients intentionally let their QS certificate lapse. Their Big-3 customer redesigned an engine to eliminate a part my client made. Two years into a five year plan they were told they did not need the only part they made, except for service parts. When the registrar called to schedule a 6 month audit, they were told not to bother as the parent company had decided to close the location as soon as the service part orders were filled. Ended up that the service orders lasted 18 months. Then the parent company decided to move additional parts in and keep the plant open. Of course most personnel had left and most quality system activities (audits, management review, etc.) did not happen for a year and a half. When they called the registrar to inquire about reinstating their certificate, they found the registrar never pulled it in the first place - even with no surveillance audit in 18 months. We quickly threw together some audits, MR and other systems to try to satisfy the audit. The registrar was VERY lenient since they realized they had screwed up by leaving the certificate valid.

If it is your parent's fault that you were not included on the 2000 upgrade you may not have much to fight about. If the registrar has not been performing surveillance audits as required, you may have some more leverage.

They will probably have to come audit you to issue a new certificate. At a minimum they could do a QS and ISO 1994 audit to prolong your current certificate. This would buy you time to upgrade to 2000 if you are not already there. I would push the registrar since it appears they messed up big time. Threats to report them to the RAB, IATF, IAOB, etc. may help if they are not willing to work with you.

If you were to allow it to lapse and went to a new registrar for ISO 9001: 2000 or ISO/TS 16949 you may be able to get by without much problem from customers. The registrar is required to notify the Big-3 and ASQ (official QS database) if you lose your certificate for QS, but I am not sure how well this gets communicated to the Big 3.