Does ISO 9001 Require control C of C (Certificate of Conformance) Signature

During a recent ISO 9001:2000 audit, the auditor wrote a minor non-conformance for our failure to have a process to ensure the person (vendor employee) signing the Certificate of Compliance was quaified to do so. The C of Cs / C of As are from material received from qualified vendors.

Does the ISO 9001:2000 spec mandate such a process?

I believe this is 100% the vendors responsibility and may simply be addressed in the vendor qualification process. Any comments / suggestions?

Actually, the proper procedure when you have such a question is to ask the auditor to "show me the shall."

I recognize how easy it is to be intimidated by an outside auditor if you feel a little shaky on the "rules." (You feel you have to come to some place like the Cove to bolster your own interpretation.) It does not show weakness or incompetence to ask the auditor to cite the chapter and verse; it is a way to keep the auditor alert to his real function and give you the opportunity to challenge findings which are "interpretations" of a clause in a Standard (in the case of a customer's auditor - an interpretation of the contract requirements.)

Once you have an exact clause to work with, then it is time to search for other opinions to bolster your own, if it is a matter of "interpretation."

Additional Info

Thanks for the quick response...

The NC was written against 7.4.2

The shall: "Purchasing information shall describe the product to be purchased, including where appropriate b) requirements for qualification of personnel"

This is not an issue of intimidation, but a question of interpretation: whose personnel (our internal employee or an outside vendor's)?

Sunday said:

The shall: "Purchasing information shall describe the product to be purchased, including where appropriate b) requirements for qualification of personnel"

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This clause refers to when a customer (you) stipulates requirements for the qualification of people performing the work (them) on your product. For example, I used to have a customer that stipulated on all purchase orders that all welding shall be performed by an AWS certified welder.

I would "not concur" with this minor.

Sunday said:

Thanks for the quick response...

The NC was written against 7.4.2

The shall: "Purchasing information shall describe the product to be purchased, including where appropriate b) requirements for qualification of personnel"

This is not an issue of intimidation, but a question of interpretation: whose personnel (our internal employee or an outside vendor's)?

Click to expand...

The magic words are "where appropriate," but note that 7.4.2 also says

The organization shall ensure the adequacy of specified purchase requirements prior to their communication to the supplier

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It's up to you to determine whether or not the requirements are "appropriate," but you're also obliged to have a process in place for making those determinations. If the auditor feels that your process is either nonexistent or too fuzzy, the finding might be appropriate. But if the auditor is saying that you're in violation of 7.4.2 in not specifying the requirements for competence of supplier personnel, then it appears that the auditor's focus is misdirected.

Sunday said:

Thanks for the quick response...

The NC was written against 7.4.2

The shall: "Purchasing information shall describe the product to be purchased, including where appropriate b) requirements for qualification of personnel"

This is not an issue of intimidation, but a question of interpretation: whose personnel (our internal employee or an outside vendor's)?

Click to expand...

Hi Sunday,

Section 7.4.2 basically states that purchasing documents i.e. Purchase orders, should provide the information needed to clearly communicate to suppliers what the organization wants to purchase.

Section 7.4.2 also requires a process to assure that purchaseing documents adequatley state all of the requirements for the items to be purchased i.e. material testing, qualified operators, C of C supplied with order.

The way my facility handled this was with quality clauses and a purchasing procedure which showed how we verify purchase orders prior toplacing an order.

Wes makes a good point which I had to learn myself always ask "Show me the ISO requirement" it helps you to understand where the auditor is coming from.

I would question this finding.


Best of luck,

Al

I'll be the first to say, "Show me the shall", but are you willing to accept a cert from the janitor? It should be changed to either an Opportunity for Improvement, Observation or Preventive Action, but not disregarded. Just my FWIW.

Al Rosen said:

I'll be the first to say, "Show me the shall", but are you willing to accept a cert from the janitor? It should be changed to either an Opportunity for Improvement, Observation or Preventive Action, but not disregarded. Just my FWIW.

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The fact is that a blanket certificate of conformance signed by the janitor has the same value legally as one signed by the CEO, which is to say, no value whatsoever. It's long been established in commercial law that shipment against a valid purchase order is de facto "certification" that the PO (contract) requirements have been met.

JSW05 said:

The fact is that a blanket certificate of conformance signed by the janitor has the same value legally as one signed by the CEO, which is to say, no value whatsoever. It's long been established in commercial law that shipment against a valid purchase order is de facto "certification" that the PO (contract) requirements have been met.

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Thanks for pointing that out. I've never understood the need or value of a CofC. So why do they still exist?

CofC still exist because some Yahoo confused the concept of a certificate of analysis (lists qualitative and quantitative analysis of the material) with a certificate of conformance (the list of the ingredients and min/max percentages are listed in the product requirements and the CofC merely is like an "attribute inspection" which says "Yeah, they're here and none of the ingredients exceeds the tolerance." versus a CofA which is an inspection which lists the characteristics, similarly to a First Article Inspection.)