Are 3rd party (ISO9001 Registrar) auditors allowed to provide "Recommendations" ?

Should / Can Registration Registrar auditors provide recommendations?

  • Recommendations for Closure of nonconformance

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    31

Sidney Vianna

Post Responsibly
Staff member
Admin
#61
Bruce55 said:
This is why is important to select your registrar carefully. I have picked third party auditors that I know will be receptive to a request for knowledge about how other companies resolve a concern. Both the auditor and the auditee gain new ideas from each other. Your company benefits when both are open to intelligent discussion. A third party auditor who enjoys his occupation also enjoys helping individuals to improve their business. ASQ CQA
Bruce, I see that this is your first post in the Cove. And that you just registered. Welcome to the fray.

Just to forewarn you that this subject is a mine field.
It might surprise you to know that some very worthy people here at the Cove VEHEMENTLY oppose the idea of 3rd party auditors identifying opportunities for improvements and offering non-proprietary information that could enhance the auditee’s organizational performance.
 
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C

Craig H.

#63
Sidney Vianna said:
Bruce, I see that this is your first post in the Cove. And that you just registered. Welcome to the fray.

Just to forewarn you that this subject is a mine field.
It might surprise you to know that some very worthy people here at the Cove VEHEMENTLY oppose the idea of 3rd party auditors identifying opportunities for improvements and offering non-proprietary information that could enhance the auditee’s organizational performance.

True enough, but there are those of us who will shamelessly steal ideas for improvement from wherever they come. If the auditor knows what they are doing they can ask leading questions to try to open up new ways of looking at a problem. This way they maintain their integrity while adding value to their service.

Bruce, welcome!
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#64
Yes! Wonderful way of looking at the situation, Craig. :applause: The auditor asks Socratic-type questions to help the auditee "discover" the principle without blatant consulting. :agree1:
 
L

Laura M

#65
I'm getting in the mix late, but Craig said it right. I think the biggest 'fear' and reason for 'avoiding consulting' is if the auditor looks the next time to see if you implemented their idea. Maybe the company had a better one that was still compliant.

Since there is another thread somewhere about 'auditors from heck' I won't repeat stories. The company, on the other hand needs to make sure that they implement something 'compliant' and avoids.."I thought you told us too....."

Good auditors can provide 'ideas' - not recommendations, not consulting, with no conflict of interest and not compromising the audit. Especially if the 'recommendation' is not for 'compliance' but assuming the company is already compliant and there is a continual improvement idea.
 
J

Jetlag

#66
SilverHawk said:
Auditors spending only 36 hours at your premises and expected to tell you how to run a business. The auditor is trying to be too smart.

The auditor should not make any suggestion or recommendation. Beside, the auditor is not an expert in the 38 industrial filed. The auditor has his own limitation. He may not know the latest and the best way to run a business.

I have recently read the IATF Rules 2nd. EDiiton dratf which suggest that "Opportunity for Improvement " MAY NOT be requested to be issued by the auditors. It is a right approach for the auditor NOT to give any crazy recommendations and insisted the organization to adopt and adapt them withoiut realizing its practicality.

An Opportunity for Improvement is not defined for ISO 9001:2000 and are therefore irrelevent. The closest an auditor can get to recommending compliance is to write an observation.
 

Helmut Jilling

Auditor / Consultant
#67
Govind said:
Recently, I was having a discussion in this subject with one of our management staff.

I was always given the impression that the Third party auditors (Registration body) are not allowed to provide recommendations for correcting deficiencies, since this may be considered as a potential bias.

I wanted to clarify this and reviewed “The Quality Audit handbook” by J.P.Russell. In Page 111, he says that if requested by the client, Auditors may provide recommendations. He suggests placing Recommendations in an appendix separately. Also adds, In most cases, that auditee is not obligated to implement auditor’s recommendation.

This is interesting with current Registrar-Organizations relationships that exist in many cases. Registrars project themselves in advertisements as a “Value added service provider”. Some organizations also expect the 3rd party auditor to provide directions on complex issues with respect requirement implementation. This is a catch 22 situation. If auditor is not providing recommendations, the organizations may not prefer the registrar. If they did, they may become biased towards auditing the Corrective action since they recommended that in the first place!

1. Having said that, would you prefer the registration auditor to provide recommendations?

2. Have you had experiences where you had implemented a different approach from what the registration auditor recommended and convinced the auditor that you were right?

Govind.
Your comments are generally correct, but the issue is not that black and white. I am an auditor and consultant for ISO 9001 and 14001, as well as QS and TS. Auditors are allowed to explain or clarify the standard, the related documents (ie: ISO 9004 - an excellent read, by the way). They are allowed to point out "Opportunities for Improvement," without giving specific solutions. They are not allowed to strongly urge that you need to do such and such and so on.

So, for example, an auditor can point out that the internal audit records were compliant, but rather basic and don't provide all the information and value that is potentially available. That could be an OFI.

If the client says, "well, whats wrong with them," he can even point out things like, the questions being used are rather generic, better depth to the audits could help improve the system, perhaps better training could benefit the auditors. He can suggest the auditors could make better use of the work instructions as a source of audit material. These are all ideas that are published in ISO 9004 and related documents, and are not consulting. But he is not permitted to go into great detail, or teach the auditors how to do better audits. We used to be able to site generic examples of how others might have tackled an issue, but recently, they are pulling back on that.

The whole principal is the auditor has to be independent, so he is not auditing his own work. If you make your system look like what he would do, the risk is he will lose objectivity. It would no longer be your system.

But, there is much value that can be given without crossing the line. Experienced auditors know where the line is. I have undergone 6 witness audits thus far, and never had a nonconformance or issue with this. But we provided much value during those audits, just like any other.
 
L

Laura M

#69
Opportunities for Improvement

Most auditors are inclined to say "Did you think about...." when then see something a little inefficient. It may or may not even be related to the standard. I don't know why there is a problem with that. The organization may say "wow - that's a great idea and will save us money." At which point paying the bill becomes less painfull. Here's an actual story - a company received material in the warehouse, made copies of the receiver, sent a copy to mfg, qc and sent the original to accounting. When asked why copies were made, it was so the mfg manager knew the material was in. The auditor asked "why doesn't receiving just enter the date in the computer, instead of waiting for accounting to do it." There were alot of "becuz' of XXXXX" which all were history - fixing problems with employees by adding steps. Or "its how we did it before the new MRP system."

So no nonconformance, just a question which alluded to an obvious improvement in efficiency.

I see no problem with that.
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Staff member
Admin
#70
It certainly is a tricky thing, but I for one would welcome something like sharing ideas of how others solved problems, so long as secrets don't get divulged and programmic prescriptions are being avoided.

Yesterday I did an observed internal EMS audit. A given machine could have been running with one of three types of abrasive pellets. A sticker on the machine's metal housing dutifully listed all three names: Stuff1/stuff2/stuff3. I asked "How can we tell which one is in there now?" The process owner didn't know. I suggested we might simply cover two out of the three (presently unused) product names with magnetic strip. The space's owner was delighted with such a quick, simple, workable fix for the fine point of identifying a substance in use.

Now when it comes to programs the matter is different. I point to the procedure and, where I am not sure the thing is being followed but I expect there may be some hemming and hawing, I might ask the document's intent; now, is that intent being followed? In my view such facilitation is quite all right.

Now I appreciate that I'm a first party auditor and not a third party auditor, but my view of these sorts of concepts would be the same.
 
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