There are two potential misunderstandings here. One of these has to do with ISO 9001 itself. The other has to do with the ISO 9001 certification process.
First, let’s deal with ISO 9001
ISO 9001 is nothing more than the latest version of preventive practices that have been used since the beginning of the industrial revolution. 200 years ago Eli Whitney built cotton gins and knew full well that if you change a document or specification but don’t control the change and notify people, that this was going to cause a problem. He also knew that you don’t assign someone to do something unless they were capable of performing the task correctly. Today, document control and employee competence are just two components of a full blown management system that is described in ISO 9001. Every part of ISO 9001 is preventive and adds value to any serious user. Take a minute and look at any part of the ISO 9001 requirements and ask yourself if you would want to deal with any supplier that said they were not going to that one part – from corrective action to purchasing – it all makes sense. If you use this approach to think through what ISO 9001 really expects you will eventually come to understand the value.
Next, lets deal with the ISO 9001 certification process. ISO 9001 implementation is only as good as those who implement and use it. It is quite frankly possible to utilize ISO 9001 and become ISO certified while doing many wrong things. You can write too many procedures, you can write procedures that people only use when their auditor is checking on them, etc. This is clearly not the fault of ISO 9001. I have seen it many times where management says; “just write a bunch of procedures and then we will be done”. Well, these problems are clearly self inflicted. There are also differences in the way Certification Bodies do their audits and issue ISO 9001 certifications. In the beginning of ISO Certification (late 1980’s) There were some significant differences in the methods, interpretation, discipline and integrity of Certification Bodies. These problems have very largely faded away, largely due to the discipline and efforts of an organization called ANAB. ANAB is responsible for auditing and Accrediting the Certification Bodies. This “Accreditation” process will never be perfect, however, it is pretty darn good. ANAB cannot control everything a Certification Body does, any more than a Certification Body can control everything that an individual auditor that they employ can do. Just remember, that there are controls in place and these controls are working pretty darn well.
If you have personally witnessed issues that are not right, I suggest that you report these to ANAB. I do not believe they will take reports of this type anonymously. You will need to provide details that they can actually investigate – after all this is an evidence based process. ANAB’s mission is to provide discipline, integrity and confidence to all who are involved. If you are unwilling to do something about this or unwilling to officially report this, then you are part of the problem.
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...........the clue is in the job title
During last year one of our plants was audited 15 of 25 working days to the various systems listed above. IN ONE MONTH! No flexiability from our customers due to product launch. This is a profitable facility with 0 actual (not baked) ppm to the customers over the past 8 years. Not exactly what one would term an "out of control" facility.