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and not before time, given that it has failed totally to add any value to the ISO 9000 process. If you want to neatly expose the false premises on which certification is founded, ask yourself these questions:
1. How is it possible, in all conscience, for any company to implement ISO 9001:2000 without any reference to ISO 9004:2000, and for certifiers to fail to demand in their audits any evidence that this has been actioned and done?
2. That ISO 9001:2000, which encourages quality management as opposed to inspection-based quality control as the primary means for realizing quality, should itself rely on a system of third-party "pass-fail" inspections to provide verification and validation of supplier claims of conformity. The whole notion of third-party certification is one which has been grafted onto the ISO 9000 model - by parties who have a vested commercial interest in the outcome.
Certification has as much to do with quality as the man in the moon. The numbers tell the story - with only about 10% of the North American certified company base transitioned over to ISO 9001:2000, and many companies and stakeholders now openly questioning the certification process, there are new dynamics afoot. Its time this value-robbing concept was done away with and companies were left to implement the ISO 9000 model in their own way and use it for what it was intended - as a framework for managing quality and creating real and sustainable business improvement.
1. How is it possible, in all conscience, for any company to implement ISO 9001:2000 without any reference to ISO 9004:2000, and for certifiers to fail to demand in their audits any evidence that this has been actioned and done?
2. That ISO 9001:2000, which encourages quality management as opposed to inspection-based quality control as the primary means for realizing quality, should itself rely on a system of third-party "pass-fail" inspections to provide verification and validation of supplier claims of conformity. The whole notion of third-party certification is one which has been grafted onto the ISO 9000 model - by parties who have a vested commercial interest in the outcome.
Certification has as much to do with quality as the man in the moon. The numbers tell the story - with only about 10% of the North American certified company base transitioned over to ISO 9001:2000, and many companies and stakeholders now openly questioning the certification process, there are new dynamics afoot. Its time this value-robbing concept was done away with and companies were left to implement the ISO 9000 model in their own way and use it for what it was intended - as a framework for managing quality and creating real and sustainable business improvement.