A "Clean" Bill of Health - Re-Registration Audit with No Nonconformances

[Jim Wynne]

I've probably mentioned this before, but when I was in the early stages of doing my first ISO 9001 go-round in the early 90s, we had some government auditors in because of a pending contract that required it before purchase. The government agency making the purchase (Department of Energy) had (unbeknownst to me) apparently made up their minds about buying our product, and the audit results were a foregone conclusion--no findings. There were, in fact, glaring issues all over the place (all of which I had accounted for). There had been some issues with getting some managers on board in the ISO registration effort, so it didn't help when the government came in and said everything was fine. I really wanted those auditors to find things, and even went so far as to point some problem areas out to them (along with my plan for improvement, of course ), but to no avail.

The moral to the story is that third-party audit findings, when legitimate, are a good thing, and not something to be dreaded. I know that many managers don't see it this way, of course, and look for someone to hit over the head when there are findings, but believe me--a good auditor is your friend.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

The moral to the story is that third-party audit findings, when legitimate, are a good thing, and not something to be dreaded. I know that many managers don't see it this way, of course, and look for someone to hit over the head when there are findings, but believe me--a good auditor is your friend.

Therein lies the conundrum of 3rd party certification services. Many misguided managers make the selection of their certification bodies for the wrong reasons, one of them being, choosing the path of least resistance towards the certificate. How many quality managers select a registrar for it's perceived likelihood of not being written up?

Until we reconcile the fact that the real users of management system certificates are NOT the certified organizations, and there are (many times) glaring difference of expectations between the registrant and their customers and other stakeholders, the credibility of the 3rd party certification concept will be attacked.

 

[JaneB]

third-party audit findings, when legitimate, are a good thing, and not something to be dreaded. I know that many managers don't see it this way, of course, and look for someone to hit over the head when there are findings, but believe me--a good auditor is your friend.

I could not agree with you more, Jim, and with your caveats. a/The auditor needs to be good, and b/the findings legitimate. When a/ is in place, then b/ tends to follow.

I also agree strongly with Sidney's observation. Some people alas do choose certifiers for the wrong reasons. It seems such a waste of time & money to me - after all, the organisation is paying for the service in any case, so it seems a 'no brainer' to me that one selects a good service provider and gets value from the service. But this seems to require a degree of intelligence and maturity in the company's management, which isn't always there.

You both make excellent points, as often.

 

[amjadrana]

Thanks to forum, I am also pleased to inform the forum that we had our annual surveillance audit for ISO 13485 yesterday. We also had no nonconformity and just one observation.

Thanks

amjad Rana