MickPetzold
Returning Poster
We are a service organization whose Scope of Work is "performance of inspections, tests and maintenance of high-voltage (Generation, Distribution and Transmission) electrical power equipment and systems to assess and ensure their suitability for initial and continued service." Our services are performed at our customers' sites - i.e., utility substations, wind farms, nuclear generation plants and industries with high voltage equipment requiring maintenance. Our QMS Scope is intended to be applicable to all services, processes and systems managed at our main office.
We have been ISO 9001 certified for four years now (no findings) and just went through an ISO 9001:2015 Upgrade Audit. Unfortunately, our registrar was being witness audited by ANAB during the audit. ANAB is seemingly pushing back on our registrar, questioning their decision to certify us since they cannot audit service performance. (Customers won't allow them on-site due to safety/security considerations.) Our registrar has suggested limiting our Scope of QMS to only shop work at our main office, which represents a very small percentage of our work. (Occasionally a customer may drop off small equipment at our shop like distribution voltage regulators for maintenance.)
My questions: If this is the case, can we even get ISO 9001 certified? We can't have auditors on our work sites due to safety and security clearance reasons. Also, by excluding field service, wouldn't we be in noncompliance to paragraph 4.3 since field service is essentially our business? Is there a solution to being ISO 9001 certified if everything else can be audited with the exception of actual field work being performed?
We have been ISO 9001 certified for four years now (no findings) and just went through an ISO 9001:2015 Upgrade Audit. Unfortunately, our registrar was being witness audited by ANAB during the audit. ANAB is seemingly pushing back on our registrar, questioning their decision to certify us since they cannot audit service performance. (Customers won't allow them on-site due to safety/security considerations.) Our registrar has suggested limiting our Scope of QMS to only shop work at our main office, which represents a very small percentage of our work. (Occasionally a customer may drop off small equipment at our shop like distribution voltage regulators for maintenance.)
My questions: If this is the case, can we even get ISO 9001 certified? We can't have auditors on our work sites due to safety and security clearance reasons. Also, by excluding field service, wouldn't we be in noncompliance to paragraph 4.3 since field service is essentially our business? Is there a solution to being ISO 9001 certified if everything else can be audited with the exception of actual field work being performed?