The difference is that they're not certified to the external calibration document. They are not held accountable to the content of that document. If they wrote their own document and changed the calibration methods, there would be no repercussions.
However, if they wrote their manual to regurgitate the requirements of the standard and then used it as the requirements document, it still would need to be verified to ensure that it met the requirements of the standard. This would have to be done by comparing it against the standard. Every time they made a change to the manual, they would have to verify again that it still met the requirements of the standard.
However, if they wrote their manual to regurgitate the requirements of the standard and then used it as the requirements document, it still would need to be verified to ensure that it met the requirements of the standard. This would have to be done by comparing it against the standard. Every time they made a change to the manual, they would have to verify again that it still met the requirements of the standard.
4.2.3f "to ensure that the documents of external origin determined by the organization to be necessary for the planning and operation of the quality management system are identified and their distribution controlled."
May I stress "determined by the organization".
If they have determed that they don't need a copy of the standard, they don't. This is especially true if they have some other way to show they have met all the requirements.
Again, I don't feel this is the ideal situation. Ideally, every registered company would have a copy of the standard as good business practice.
