Auditing after a merge

[Bryan - 2004]

My company recently merged with two other divisions. Then as one company, 4 divisons were set up. One group, (the division Im with in our current building) will be the only group that will continue with our ISO certification. There are 3 departments that we had that now fall under corporate office, HR, IT, and Acct and not under our division. Though they will still staff employees in our building, and we will continue to deposit training records with HR, we will continue using a software program, (tool, maintained by IT) for Inspection receiving records, the question has come up as to include these departments in our internal audits.

Because they are corporate and do not fall under ISO any more,
should they be disregarded, or is there an element that still may apply.

I would like to see what response others may have on this?

Thank you

 

[db]

Auditing Divisions

First of all Bryan , welcome to the Cove.

It is incumbent on the registered organization to meet the “shalls” in the standard. It makes no difference whether you, or someone else actually does the work. ISO 9001 doesn’t care who performs the activity. The activity must be under control. Look at the HQ as a vendor, and the requirement as “outsourced”. One company I worked with outsourced their sales to another company. During the audit, they had to ensure all the required records were available for auditing. I think the same thing would apply to you.

In other words, the elements still apply.

 

[M Greenaway]

Bryan

This is a very interesting question.

I work in a similar corporate structure where functions, such as HR, report to managers at other locations - although every location is ISO9001 approved.

ISO9001:2000 now states that we cannot scope out of our QMS anything that might affect quality (so that means everything). How this will work I am not sure, is the cert issued for the site ?

I know that my organisation is pursuing seperate certificates for each business unit, i.e. it is not site specific - dont know how that will work either !

To summarise - I dont know, sorry, but I am very interested in this topic.

 

[gpainter]

I would hope that the other divisions would continue to operate under your QMS whither they are registered or not. I would say this may fall under outsourcing under the 00 standard

 

[Bryan - 2004]

M Greenaway and others thanks for your replys,
Yes, the cert is issued to the site only and will continue that away.
The 2 departments here claim now they are corporate, they dont have to and dont want to be audited. Others within the company here believe they should be included. Our audit comes up in July so may have to see what the auditor has to say about the situation. One way to learn.
We are hoping the other sites will continue with there documentation and following procedures, though I can see that slowly going away as time goes by.
Anyway, again thank you for responses.

Bryan

 

[Randy]

This is a pretty good topic with the way the business environment is.

1st - Check with your registrar about the scope of your certificate and if any changes should be made

2nd - address this as an item for potential C&P action and for the next management review

My 2 cents worth for now