Count the number of auditors you know, that have actual, hands on, multiple year experience in US Government contracting.......Experience is one of those things we find necessary for "Competence". I've got 18 years or so on Cost+ and Cost+ Award Fee contracts myself, in GOCO operations, as opposed to COCO. If the contract mandates the use of the Federal Supply System the contactor has absolutely no choice in anything, supplier selection, material qualification, everything is out of their hands, an most of the time it's to lowest bidder and not best quality. (Experienced myself many times in US Government aircraft maintenance)
To imply that touching an airframe would make anyone a better aerospace management system auditor is pretty shortsighted in my opinion. Heck, one of the big problems in “professional management system auditing” we have is the fact that people who spent 3 decades as inspectors make it to the job. We have too many CB auditors out there do not comprehend systems approach to anything and get bogged down in minutiae and silly technicalities, incapable of understanding the big picture.
Most obstetricians are males who have never been pregnant.
2 different things entirely, besides I've delivered 4 babies and twisted wrenches on aircraft so I speak from actual hands on experience unlike many others.
Randy, this was a big issue during my AS9100 Pre-Assessment and during the Stage 1. We spent a lot of time trying to get the Auditor to understand our business. If often felt like we were jamming a square peg in a round hole...
As I said, if the auditor had no concept of government contracting, it's obligations, requirements, and differences with what we call normal business relationships, you should have shown him the door.
CAUTION! Better review your contract, depending on how it's written, in many times you're obligation to use the quality system of the branch or organization you're serving. We always had to abide by Army Quality and build our QMS around it. Examples below -
