Are ISO 9000 Registrations failing to grow?

[Marc]

ISO 9000 Registrations failing to grow?

I rarely visit the misc.industry.quality news group any more, but I did this morning as I was trolling the net and contemplating life. Lo and behold, I see there is a petition in progress to complain to the ISO folks. I read through the posts and my feelings were pretty well summed up:

I noted the post nor the petition carried the name of the poster, but the petition online had it listed as YYYYYYYYYYY.

I assume he is a hard man to work for if an average of 30% growth - year on year - for over 10 years is an alarming issue. Someone should teach him what exponential growth is. ISO has been increasing in an exponential way for 10 years, and just because the percentages have dropped does not mean the take-up is any less. The 10% in 2002 is still twice the take-up of the 51% in 1994. It takes time and resources to get certified, and there is only a limited number of companies who will benefit from certification. For example, I am in software development so the ISO 15504, 15288 and CMM(I) are more influential to my field. These are also growing exponentially. Combining these other standards together would provide a much larger growth rate. There are also many small companies who may improve their processes but unlikely to take up 9000 certification.

Yes there are some issues with 9000 but ISO is addressing them. The 2000 version corrects (or at least tries to correct) the belief that ISO will allow a company to create lead lined life jackets - as long as they put in the amount of lead specified in their quality manual. Many companies achieved ISO 9000 to get the certification logo for their marketing or to trade with government - not to improve their practices. The latest version addresses this by implementing a continuous improvement focus.

Having only a 3-4% drop off rate is, IMHO, pretty good. The average business failure rate is far above this. Maybe that means that ISO 9000 companies are less likely to fail - but not guaranteed not to!

Andrew Baker

What's your opinion? Where is ISO 9001? Where is it going? Is the 'market' drying up for consultants? How about registrars?

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

What's your opinion? Where is ISO 9001? Where is it going? Is the 'market' drying up for consultants? How about registrars?

Good quote there. Decline? what decline? With reservation for the 2003 figures I don't see a decline. Killing the 1994 version may create a temporary drop, but I wouldn't worry about that...

/Claes

 

[Howard Atkins]

Good quote there. Decline? what decline? With reservation for the 2003 figures I don't see a decline. Killing the 1994 version may create a temporary drop, but I wouldn't worry about that...

/Claes

Claes,
Here is the decline, you should use all the data!

and another interesting figure

I have noticed there has been a growth of particioants from China recently. Have you got any figures Marc?

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Claes,
Here is the decline, you should use all the data!

Ah well. The data was not the problem. What I didn't get was that we discuss diclining growth. I looked at the total number of certificates. Thank's Howard.

/Claes

 

[DannyK]

ISO 9001 has definitely peaked. As a consultant, the growth opportunities will be in the specialized industry standards such as AS91000, OHSAS 18001, ISO 14001 and ISO 13485.

I don't think we will see a year like 2003 until there is another change to the standard.

I work for a few registrars and there are very few new ISO 9001 registrations. The work in the next 12 months will be primarily surveillance or maintenance audits.

Danny

 

[Marc]

Naw. Not me, Howard. I did get this e-mail notification from the Iso Stop forum a few minutes ago so obviously it's being discussed there:

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Forum: ISO 9000 Forum: Sign the Petition to "Reverse the Worldwide Decline of ISO 9001"
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Posted by Roderick Goult on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 3:29 am:

I have been reading this correspondance with interest and some concern. The concern stems firstly from the fact that I suggest YYYYYYYYY is actually seriously misinterpreting the data concerning ISO 9001 certifications. He quotes, as an example, a 'decline'in certification growth in the USA from 53% to 10% between 1993 and 2003, and then uses this extremely dubious statistic to predict that there will actually be a decline in certifications starting very shortly.

Well, let's consider the facts rather than emotive interpretations of the facts. Now I don't actually have discrete numbers in front of me, not being in my office, but having been involved in the ISO world in the USA since 1990, I can state with certainty that in 1993 there were but a relative handful of certified companies in the country. There are now over 60,000. I shall seek confirmation of the actual data from QSU and post it once it is received.

When the number is small, a 53% increase is easy. As the number gets larger, the absolute number of certificates may grow, but the percentage increase go down. This is the simple fact of what has happened, not a decline. It actually reflects the current capacity of the accredited certification industry.

Add to that a number of companies (not small) which have not upgraded their QS-9000/ISO 9001 or 9002 certification because they are transitioning to TS16949, then consider those doing the same transition from ISO 9001 to ISO 13485, and the overall picture is nothing like the gloomy prognostications from YYYYYYYYY. Interpreting data is always a risky business.

On the subject of binary certification raised by another author, remember the Crosby definition of quality - conformance to specification.

Sytem certifiation is by definition binary, just like product certification - you either meet the requirement or you don't. If you want to perpetuate the quality profession's greatest sin, subjective squishy-squashy niceness and 'better than' stuff, then play with quality awards.

Leave the simplistic starkness of management systems alone. At the end of the day the effectiveness of a QMS comes from, as several have stated, the implementation process driven by management commitment.

The moment you have auditors making value judgements on the 'goodness' of systems they will become another failure, adding yet again to the litter of quality initiative failures which make up the history of quality in the second half of the 20th century. There can be no clearer indication of this than the decline in applications for, and use of, the Baldrige award over the past ten years.

I guess I look at it from the perspective of someone who lived ISO during the 1990's, don't see it as the 'answer' any more than I believe six sigma is. Companies rise and fall based on much more than whether they are ISO registered or have a Six Sigma Black Belt on staff.

I know the number of companies in the world is finite so as more and more companies achieve registration a point occurs where the base is so large that to continue an exponential (or even a linear) growth trend becomes impossible. Theoretically, saturation will occur. What can be done about a 'failure to grow' then?

I think ISO has been quite widely adopted and my realization that ISO had been reduced to a 'bulk' product with limited growth potential came back around 2000 to 2001. We were already pretty far up the pyramid back then. The big money was gone - big companies for the most part had implemented it, were in the process or wasn't going to use a consultant. It became a small company / Mom and Pop company business so consultants (being one I can say this) and registrars found it harder and harder to make money. Consultants and registrars are a dime a dozen now. I feel lucky - I was 'there during the gold rush' and I 'got mine' while the gettin' was good. I worked with a number of good multi-nationals and for the most part I enjoyed it.

I started this thread after reading the posts in the misc.industry.quality news group because I think the topic will lead to a lively discussion. But - To me it doesn't matter if growth slows. Actually, I'm more interested in what people think a fall in registrations would mean to begin with. What's the big deal if growth does slow? Will 'quality' cease to exist in the world?

If I was going to watch a statistic for a trend which I believe best tells one the 'health' of ISO 9001, I would look at how many companies were deciding not to renew their registrations each year. If the trend line of that statistic begins to increase, things could get very interesting.

ISO 9001 has definitely peaked. As a consultant, the growth opportunities will be in the specialized industry standards such as AS91000, OHSAS 18001, ISO 14001 and ISO 13485.

I agree.

 

[Marc]

Saturation?

Ah well. The data was not the problem. What I didn't get was that we discuss diclining growth.

Well, really I think the question is whether or not we're talking about anything other than the decline. I assume the first attachment of the two indicate new registrations in a year.

Are we at a saturation point?

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

I wonder... Can anyone provide figures on the number of certificates that went down the drain with the December deadline?

/Claes

 

[Wes Bucey]

I wonder... Can anyone provide figures on the number of certificates that went down the drain with the December deadline?

/Claes

I, too, have been thinking about this question.

I think the answer may be involved with some of these issues

• change to different Standard (TS16949 for example)
• company consolidations (blanket certificates in lieu of separate facility)
• organization business failure

as well as

• a conscious choice on the part of the organization to avoid registration in favor of compliance if customer base allows.

My guess is the remaining number who rejected anything to do with Standards via registration or compliance would be relatively small.

How would we "filter" any surveys displaying registration/non registration to take such things into account?

Most important question: Is there value to knowing the answer?

No slam, here, Claes - just wondering if this isn't similar to asking the question about any proposed record in an organization:
"What's the value added of gathering and recording this metric?"

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Don't confuse me with facts!

And the XXXXXXXX article also fights the facts presented in the ISO article available at (broken link removed).

To me, MUCH more important than the quantity of new certificates is the QUALITY (integrity and value added to ALL stakeholders) of the certificates issued by Registrars.

I never forget a session that I attended years ago, at the LA ISO Users Group, and a Lead Auditor, representing a well known Registrar stated in front of 50 + people that, if the auditee disputed a valid non-conformity, he would not write it up, since, he too was concerned with customer satisfaction