Need Help With Auditing Suppliers Against ISO 9001

[Big Jim]

This morning I took a stealthy but direct approach. I managed to obtain the new Operations Managers direct dial number and called them...
Turns out that they had not been receiving my e-mails as they had been going to the previous Operations Managers e-mail account (an IT glitch) and that messages had not been passed on.
She apologised for this and we have arranged and agreed a date for the audit visit.
So, we may yet be able to salvage what was a good customer / supplier relationship...

I'll update here once we have completed the audit visit.

That was a wise alternative.

 

[ChrisM]

Quite why this thread popped up in a list of "similar threads" to something else I was reading, I don't know but.......

One of the main objectives of the old BS5750 (which "morphed" into ISO9001) was that an independent audit took place at a supplier, to save all its customers an potential suppliers having to go along and conduct their own audits. It's supposed to work along the lines of.... i phone a company and say I am looking at using them as a supplier for x so I want to come along and conduct an audit". They respond by saying that an independent body has been along and conducted a full audit, in much more detail that I would conduct as a potential customer of theirs, and they have awarded us a nice certificate to show that we meet this standard.

If you go to a supplier, it's not so much an audit against ISO9001 that you need to conduct, but an audit against your specific requirements that you want the supplier to observe. For example you may want to see specific tests done and specific measurements made; your visit would include looking at the equipment and facilities to determine if they could meet this, or if they would need to invest to do so. Or maybe you want parts produced in a particular material - check that the potential supplier is used to working with that material to the dimensions and tolerances that you require. I could write a long and interesting tale about something that happened when I first started working in "quality" way back in 1979/1980 that opened my eyes wide to this.....

 

[Sidney Vianna]

One of the main objectives of the old BS5750 (which "morphed" into ISO9001) was that an independent audit took place at a supplier, to save all its customers an potential suppliers having to go along and conduct their own audits.

Slightly but relevant to understand the genesis of BS5750 and the 3rd party audit process, people can read this document available at this post.

 

[porcupine]

You still haven't explained why you feel you need to do this. If you want to audit suppliers, you will of course need their cooperation, and if you're asking suppliers to send you all of their documentation prior to the audit, I can understand the reluctance. Talk with suppliers, not as a dictator but as a partner, and find out with them the best way to go about this.

I will say that as a supplier that is ISO 9001certified, we had a customer do a more in-depth audit than the one we pay for... I found it to be not only unnecessary but a little bit of a stone in the mill. This customer increased their orders by more than 50%, and we have expressed numerous times the issue we are having with finding employees. So, when they wanted to do such an in-depth audit, that took me away from inspecting their parts..... We utilize a vendor approval list where we dictate the criteria that is important to our organization. For instance, there are columns that asks if they are ISO certified, and if there have been any issues that have resulted in CA or otherwise, we then evaluate this information at each MRM and make a determination on the value added-vs-the risk associated with that vendor.