Sorry all - long post follows!
Now very much back to the topic. Jane here told us that she has the greatest respect for the standard
Correct so far.
... as a leveller - making everything boil down to the criteria and evidence to fulfilment.
That's not quite an accurate summary of what I actually said.
One can (and this one sure does!) simultaneously respect the Standard, while also acknowledging that there are at times some deficiencies in how it is implemented. If you read what I said in this thread as my not having that view, you drew a quite mistaken conclusion.
Why do we continue to pretend?
Pretend? I don't.
Do I think some certifiers are poor? Yes, I do. (There's a couple in this country I'll have nothing to do with). But they are 2 out of 26. That's low numbers.
Are there some poor auditors around? Yes. Yes, these things happen. Nothing and no one is perfect, and I don't expect this. But the majority I come across and work with are OK through to very good. I've seen... oh, golly, at least 70 - 80 different auditors at work. Of those, I was distinctly unimpressed through to very unhappy with perhaps 5 or 6 all up, over a 20-year period. Also low numbers.
If I experience a poor auditor/audit, I complain to the certifier in the first instance. On the (relatively few overall) occasions I've done it, I've usually been impressed with their response and action, from replacing the auditor to reviewing the findings and in one case, retiring an auditor permanently.
Now - in each case, there were circumstances & more going on than I have time/space to write or would divulge, to maintain confidentiality. Judging a single case having only a few bare facts is like the readers of a daily newspaper setting themselves up as judges when they don't know all the circumstances.
ON a couple of other occasions, I've advised the client to switch certifiers. In both cases, the client was very much happier with the new certifier and auditor/s.
Jane quit her assignment with a client 'who had a dreadful cumbersome pile of *&^%$ as a certified QMS!' How? heaven knows!!
Hey, hang on. Their system was dreadful when I started, not when I quit! To write what you have is misreporting what I said and not true.
You're actually pulling stuff I wrote in a thread I started to discuss a quite different topic (when do you
fire a client? - a topic incidentally I was keen to discuss, but - talk about cultural differences! it got hijacked by a bunch of guys from a quite foreign culture

which should have been in the 'water cooler' forum IMO).
However, it's reasonable to look at what else I've said, and I don't resile from what I wrote.
But using it to support your argument here I don't think is a reasonable use. I'll have to explain a bit more.
Yes, it was an awful system. No, I don't know how it passed certification to the 2000 version of 9001 (we're going back a way), but contributing factors included the lead auditor:
- perhaps unfamiliar at the time with the new 'process approach'
- but willing to extend the 'benefit of the doubt' at that point, and had been auditing them for some time.
What I didn't say in that thread (wasn't relevant to the topic!) was that when I first started with them, the auditor had raised some very severe actions in his recertification audit report against the system, its documentation, its workability. It required a lot of change. (If you want to blame anyone, in fact, put the blame where it belongs. With the %^&*^%$ consultant who'd sold them the pile of 'off the shelf' crap documentation close to the worst I've seen. He'd taken that old outdated 1994 model, pasted in all the words from the new version... and trotted it out. Words (almost) fail me.)
Yes, I helped them them turn it into a streamlined & functional, clear system. And why was I there? At least in part because the auditor raised grave concerns in the audit report, and the GM went looking for a better consultant. Enter yours truly.
This project went on for two years during which the client faced external audits with the system in improving stages of repair
Yes, they did. To high commendation from the external auditor - but even more importantly, to the pleasure of the GM and internal staff. Which was deserved. You seem to be equating the total period I worked with total period to fix system, which isn't accurate. We did a lot of improvement.
(which were basically still disrepair).
Leaping to conclusions, there. Not true, and I don't know where you got that idea from.
Allow me to explain.The auditor could see abundant evidence that a/they met requirements and b/were improving. Not as much as you'd expect for the length of time company had been certified, no - but definitely improving.
At the end of the project the relationship evolved into maintenance of the system. Now, during internal audits, she realised that the system was a mess being run by adamant people.
No again. Internal audits were performed throughout the project - simultaneous improve and operate. Plan, do check, act: Identify problems, raise actions, fix, review, etc. I didn't realise at the end 'the system was a mess'. It wasn't.
She quit when she realised that she couldnt make the people change.
I quit because I decided I did not want to work with the particular person in charge, and because I disliked the disconnect between theory and action: stated values, and values in action. A very personal decision, and an ethical conflict. Nothing in ISO 9001, and not really related. You could / can be certified to the Standard and still have bad managers/execs in charge (meaning 'bad' as in bad people wise. They may be OK managers/execs, but have poor people skills).
Was it a streamlined & functional, clear system? No.
I disagree. Where was the dysfunction? With the manager. That's what took me a while to finally realise, and only became possible once the system had been overhauled - fewer places to look
Was it certified? (Presumably) yes.
Yes, it was. And rightly so, IMO.
You're taking one
singleexample from something I wrote, where you don't even know all the facts, and then using that to support your argument and turning it into a very widespread generalisation. Stats isn't my strong point (I'm not an engineering type

) but even I know that these are very flawed stats.
One white crow does not make all crows white!
That's the thing I disagree with you about, Potdar. A lot.
I am not disagreeing that things go wrong, that some certifiers aren't what they should be, and some auditors ditto. Where I do disagree, as have others in this thread, and what I will continue to disagree absolutely with you, is that this is widespread or normal or the general rule.
In my experience and opinion, it isn't.