John - with respect, your comments are better addressed in the on going and long debate over this subject, in another thread. Since we're speaking of the OP's original request about product design, the answer is, yes, they can exclude it. To go off on another tack, to debate the philosophy of whether the company designs services is somewhat in appropriate here, since the chances are, no CB would touch that interpretation.
Andy,
I agree with you that for certification purposes the requirements of clause 1.2 tend to prevail.
But here Wendy is ascertaining the importance of the service part of her company's products. She may find that service is the main thing that concerns customers. Indeed, service quality may be a quality objective.
Accordingly, for the management system to be adequate it must also assure service quality and enable continual improvement of service quality.
As such the system may include service specifications. The quality manual may also have to describe two scopes:
- Scope of the system (as it is)
- Scope of the system for the certificate (with no mention of service)
But surely the system should be for more than just certification?
I am guessing that you are saying scope B cannot be the same as A because of clause 1.2. In doing so are we are in danger of ignoring clause 5.6.1 that requires the system to be adequate?
I shall also post this in the other thread to which you refer and later will delete the post that helps the least.
John