Experience with Multiple Sites Operating Under One ISO Certificate?

[JaneB]

Re: Advantages and Disadvantages with one ISO certificate to multiple sites?

Major nonconformities resulting in not being recommended for registration/certification.

Stijloor.

Yes, that pretty much sums it up.

But note this doesn't mean 'and you can't get your certification'. It means you have to fix those identified major nonconformities before you can get it.

 

[S. Thompson]

Hi Anerol C

In March this year I was in the same position as yourselves. The board wanted one registration (9001) across three sites in diferent parts of the country. They did not want to know about cost savings etc, just wanted to get a streamlined company.

Anyway, in October the last site was assessed and we are now all under one registration.

I am based at the Head Office so started with the QMS we have had in place for the last 12 years. One site was registered to 9001 and the other was not.

Basically, the Quality Manual and procedures are generic across all sites and are available to all through the company intranet.
I did not want to change the world and get peoples backs up in the process, so I went along with the notion that 'if it a'int broke. don't fix it' I reviewed all site specific work instrucitons and documents and changed very few - they worked and the staff were used to working with them!

The easiest one was the site that had no QMS as we could implement the QMS from scratch.

Only observations were made at both sites.

My only advice to you I think is to get the staff on your side. Try to make it exciting for them and take on board their ideas. We don't have a local champion as such - yes, some do more than others - but all contribute.

I am trying with auditing the sites at a rate of once every 2 months. Early days yet, but I think this is sufficient for the amount of employees and simplicity of the processes.

My next target now is to get 14001 across all sites. Next year looks pretty booked up then!

Good Luck!

 

[Anerol C]

I have another question;
Currently our company is part of a "Division A" so the certificate will involve just division A; however there are plans to get products from other divisions different than A. How we can handle those other product that are for other divisions that will be out of the scope of the certificate??
Thanks
AC

 

[Helmut Jilling]

I have another question;
Currently our company is part of a "Division A" so the certificate will involve just division A; however there are plans to get products from other divisions different than A. How we can handle those other product that are for other divisions that will be out of the scope of the certificate??
Thanks
AC

The simple answer - Generally, when sister companies supply services or product, it is considered a supporting location, and must be audited that way. It is also listed that way on the cert.

But, this is a complicated arena to explain, and the smart thing to do would be to ask your registrar. They have to review your specific situation and make a call they can support.

 

[qualityboi]

I have another question;
Currently our company is part of a "Division A" so the certificate will involve just division A; however there are plans to get products from other divisions different than A. How we can handle those other product that are for other divisions that will be out of the scope of the certificate??
Thanks
AC

Pretty much what Helmut stated. Since they are part of your company you will most likely need to get them rolled into the registration. Just meet with the registar and figure out how much it will cost to roll them and decide upon the external audit schedule-frequency. This is based on the size of the supplier and importance of the material. The registration will list the mulitple sites covered. As you add divisions its more $.
Personal Experience: It is not recommended to go for a strategy that involves piece mailing in different divsions. We tried to do this but then Marketing and other groups started getting screwed up and telling customers we were getting registered in general, when only certain processes and products of the company were registered, we eventually made the decision for process managment sake to do the entire company after all its a quality management system standard not a product and process standard.
Sounds like your having a ball,

Jim

 

[Sidney Vianna]

The simple answer - Generally, when sister companies supply services or product, it is considered a supporting location, and must be audited that way. It is also listed that way on the cert.

That applies for TS-16949 certificates. For ISO 9001 certification this is not the common practice.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

That applies for TS-16949 certificates. For ISO 9001 certification this is not the common practice.

how do you handle it under ISO 9001?

 

[Sidney Vianna]

The registrant defines the scope of certification, including the sites and the product lines to be within the boundaries of the system to be certified. Sister sites can be treated as suppliers, if appropriate. It is imperative that we do not enforce requirements from Industry specific accreditation schemes, such as the ones emanating from the IATF or the IAQG into the traditional ISO 9001 accredited certification process.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

The registrant defines the scope of certification, including the sites and the product lines to be in the scope of certification. Sister sites can be treated as suppliers, if appropriate.

It is imperative that we do not enforce requirements from Industry specific accreditation schemes, such as the ones emanating from the IATF or the IAQG into the traditional ISO 9001 accredited certification process.

Yes, I agree that would not be appropriate. However, I do not understand that ISO 9001 would allow them to exclude functions performed at sister plants or at corp. Things such as Contract Review, centralized Purchasing, Calibration, etc. would still have to be audited, wouldn't they?

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Yes, I agree that would not be appropriate. However, I do not understand that ISO 9001 would allow them to exclude functions performed at sister plants or at corp. Things such as Contract Review, centralized Purchasing, Calibration, etc. would still have to be audited, wouldn't they?

Exclusions of processes comprised in the QMS, process outsourcing, etc... has been extensively discussed elsewhere. I fail to see where, in this thread, this issue was brought up before your preceding post. As far I read Anerol's post, she was not alluding to any process exclusion.