Does your Registrar have a high Auditor Turnover Rate?

I am interested to know what is the (perception of) turnover you are experiencing with your 3rd party auditors.
A few registrars have little turnover, even though the life of a 3rd party auditor is very demanding from a traveling perspective. Other registrars, from what I gather, have a high turnover rate, and new auditors show up all the time, leading to discontinuity and continuous learning curves.

Re: Does your Registrar have a high turnover rate of auditors?

On my lead auditor course, I was told it was their policy (requirement?) to rotate auditors, max 3 years with one company - this may be a factor.

I've had the same Lead Auditor throughout the 3 yr contract that ends Dec. 2006 until last weeks surveillance. I've asked that 1 of 3 associate auditors we've seen never be assigned to us again, but that's just me.So overall, pretty stable. And I should add that I'm dealing with the registrar executives usually, not sub-contractors.

Re: Does your Registrar have a high turnover rate of auditors?

nonaynever said:

On my lead auditor course, I was told it was their policy (requirment?) to rotate auditors, max 3 years with one company - this may be a factor.

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Good point. It might be an internal requirement for some CB's. But, unless I am missing it, it is not a requirement from the IAF Guidance to ISO Guide 62, nor is in ISO/IEC 17021, recently released.

Also, in some Sectors, such as the TS 16949 Certification Scheme, it is a "strong expectation (almost requirement)" that one member of the Initial Audit to remain during the first 3-year surveillance cycle. And, new auditors to be assigned for the second (and following) surveillance cycles.

I turn over quite a bit when I'm sleeping.

I chose "too early to tell" because I have not had the opportunity to meet with the current auditor from DnV, but I know that since the initial certification/registration audit the same auditor has performed the follow-up audits. I have read the reports that were available, and there are some things that I would have challenged, but the person that was here before me never did.

I noticed that there is a turnover for medical device auditors. Probably because there is a huge demand for auditors.

For ISO 9k and AS9100 , it seems very stable.

One of the reasons for some auditor changes is expenses. When there are a few clients in an area, the registrar will try to find local subcontractors to audit to cut down on expenses.

Danny

I haven't been at this company long, but from reading past audit results I know that the ISO9001 registrar for our sister plant has had the same auditor for at least the last 3 years. I met her and I liked her.
My plant is not ISO registered (yet) but we have a notified body for the European PED that audits every 9 months or so. Again from reading past audit results - they have two auditors that do the US and they have been the same guys for years. I met one and spoke with the other on the phone and like them both.
We have a National Board inspection for ASME marking coming up so I'll be monitoring that over time.

I've been happy with the auditors from NSF-ISR. We had the same auditor for three years. He decided to only audit for a couple of TS clients from the registrar and also start consulting for TS on his own - so we got a new auditor whom we've had for the last couple of years. We have a new auditor again - but that is because we are changing from ISO9001 to AS9100. (Registration audit is Wednesday, Thursday and Friday next week.: )

What looks like turnover could be scheduling issues, especially associated with all these standards revisions and the extra time needed to certify to them. For those in specialties who cannot be assigned elsewhere, others must take their place.