Reasons for the Decline of ISO 9001 Registrations in North America (circa 2010)

[George Weiss]

With all this good data, on the percentage of companies who are in good compliance it make me think my observations are more acute in the industry I have been working. I do not have the benefit of a wide cross section of business process observation. My past career was in an artful task of providing an invisible service. I completed the individual jobs with a visible little sticker on items, which received my service, and various documents declaring what I had done. I have learned from this forum that my job is a service, which needs to be validated to reduce the risk of significant non-conformities of service. I noticed the odd condition of a general lack of interest in validating the service provided in this field. My observations are a small cluster of problems in a generally good business process system.
This is of course another topic.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Re: What are the Reasons for the Decline of ISO 9001 Registrations in North America?

I do know that of the several hundred companies that I worked with, almost all of them (95%+) took it pretty seriously during the period I worked with them.

My experience pretty much matches yours. I'm not sure that I would go as high as 95%, but most certainly most companies do want to live by the standard.

Thank you both for chiming in. The question that I would pose, following your assertion is: If the percentage of organizations that attain ISO 9001 certification in a value added manner is that high, I would think that most (if not all) of them would flow down the certification mandate to their suppliers. If that was happening, the snowball effect would be in full swing, and not the flat-line/decline trend data shows in North America.

After all, who does not want to have reliable, capable, high-performance suppliers? Especially, if the supplier themselves pay for the effort.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Re: What are the Reasons for the Decline of ISO 9001 Registrations in North America?

Thank you both for chiming in. The question that I would pose, following your assertion is: If the percentage of organizations that attain ISO 9001 certification in a value added manner is that high, I would think that most (if not all) of them would flow down the certification mandate to their suppliers. If that was happening, the snowball effect would be in full swing, and not the flat-line/decline trend data shows in North America.

After all, who does not want to have reliable, capable, high-performance suppliers? Especially, if the supplier themselves pay for the effort.

I would in no wise suggest that 95% of the certified companies "attain ISO 9001 certification in a value added manner."

In fact, in my post a few screens before, I indicated that many companies do not do it well, but many companies do. I said I have no way of knowing what the broader percentages are, but I am sure it is lower.

The point of the comment was it is up to the auditors, consultants, CBs... AND internal Q managers to push their companies toward good performance. It is not only the CBs job. I stated the 95% figure as clients I personally worked with, some with a fair amount of prodding, to set the point.

The comment was in response to George Weiss thoughts that few companies took it seriously, I was showing the other side.

 

[Big Jim]

Re: What are the Reasons for the Decline of ISO 9001 Registrations in North America?

Thank you both for chiming in. The question that I would pose, following your assertion is: If the percentage of organizations that attain ISO 9001 certification in a value added manner is that high, I would think that most (if not all) of them would flow down the certification mandate to their suppliers. If that was happening, the snowball effect would be in full swing, and not the flat-line/decline trend data shows in North America.

After all, who does not want to have reliable, capable, high-performance suppliers? Especially, if the supplier themselves pay for the effort.

I don't believe that the results I'm refering to is typical. What I see within the clients I call on, both from the auditing side and from the consulting side, are the results of hard work to provide value added service.

I can also tell this isn't typical, as the numbers are much lower for first time visits.

When a consultant or auditor cares and is competent, it makes a big difference.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Re: What are the Reasons for the Decline of ISO 9001 Registrations in North America?

Thank you both for chiming in. The question that I would pose, following your assertion is: If the percentage of organizations that attain ISO 9001 certification in a value added manner is that high, I would think that most (if not all) of them would flow down the certification mandate to their suppliers. If that was happening, the snowball effect would be in full swing, and not the flat-line/decline trend data shows in North America from 2009 to 2010.

After all, who does not want to have reliable, capable, high-performance suppliers? Especially, if the supplier themselves pay for the effort.

The latest ISO Survey shows yet another decline in the number of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certificates in the North American market.

I am a little puzzled because, from where I stand, business has been brisk. So, it might be a case of buyers of certification services becoming more knowledgeable and demanding.

To access the main findings of the ISO Survey 2010, click on the pic below.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Re: What are the Reasons for the Decline of ISO 9001 Registrations in North America?

The latest ISO Survey shows yet another decline in the number of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certificates in the North American market.

I am a little puzzled because, from where I stand, business has been brisk. So, it might be a case of buyers of certification services becoming more knowledgeable and demanding.

To access the main findings of the ISO Survey 2010, click on the pic below.

Would the decline in North America reflect the closing of some companies during the economic downturn? And, many companies either bought another company, merged or consolidated multiple plants. Those things would result in a reduction in the number of certs, but not necessarily reflect a decline in mandating certification.

I have seen a few of my clients consolidating or merging certs. But, none of the folks I know "dropped" their certs. Also, almost all of the ones I know still do require sub-suppliers to be certified.

As you know, I am a big fan of the fact that ISO CAN be implemented in a value added manner, but of course, many companies do not go there. I think too many companies try to do it without adequate training and help.

Also, the N. America market is more mature than developing countries like China. So, we'll never hit those percentages.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Re: What are the Reasons for the Decline of ISO 9001 Registrations in North America?

Also, the N. America market is more mature than developing countries like China. So, we'll never hit those percentages.

Not sure what kind of "maturity" you are referring to. When it comes to management system certification maturity, there is no market more mature than Europe. If we limit our analysis to ISO 9001, the North American market lost 13% of ISO 9001 certificates from 2009 to 2010, while Europe gained 6%, during the same period.

Much smaller countries, such as Italy and Spain have more ISO 9001 certificates than the USA, the largest economy in the World. In countries such as Italy, even micro-businesses tend to go after ISO 9001 certification, while, in the USA, the penetration of QMS certification in small businesses (<30 employees) is very limited.

Just to compare, in the USA alone we have approximately 6,800 AS91X0 certificates. And continuously growing since 2003, when we established the OASIS database. As most organizations certified to AS91X0 standards also have an ISO 9001 certificate, without the AS certification mandate, chances are, the number of ISO 9001 certificates in the USA could be almost 6,000 fewer.

 

[Deereman]

I haven't read all the posts in this lengthy thread, so if I repeat others, I do apologize!

Having been through a few audits (both surveillance and re-registration), I've found the quality of the registrars has decreased dramatically. Although we can always expect differing interpretations, it seems (in my experience) that the registrars think they have to find something...just to justify their existence.
One of the registrars I escorted during a full audit (about a year ago) was rather abusive toward the auditees. As the escort, I put a stop to that immediately. I wanted to contact and report this registrar's action. However, as I was a contractor at the firm, the audited company's Quality Manager declined to do so.

All in all, if my experiences are typical; I can see companies seeing ISO 9000 as a bureaucratic and nonvalue-added activity/expense.

 

[Randy]

Self inflicted wounds....Organizations get what they want and registrars seek customer satisfaction....Very few organizations like being told that they are up to their neck in a cesspool, they prefer the smell of roses.

 

[pldey42]

I was consulting in America for five years around 2000-2006, helping clients to get certified to ISO 9001 and TL 9000.

One of my Telecom clients did ISO 9001 properly, because they were exceptionally well-led by a CEO who believed in people and their development. I asked him if certification was delivering value and he said it was, because it helped to convince financial auditors that there was substance and sustainable growth behind the numbers, which investors liked to hear.

A few years later I found out that they had dropped the certification because while it had helped them to stabilize their processes it did not help improvement. (They had no clients demanding formal certification.) They had moved their Quality budget to Six Sigma, which they found helped them to improve systematically and proactively.

I have a feeling that systems like Six Sigma, CMMI and Baldrige are more likely to be used in the USA than over here in Europe and that perhaps this is one reason why certs in Europe increase while those in the USA decline.

In Europe, Six Sigma is widely regarded as expensive, and perhaps just another of those quality fashions that come and go; getting CMMI training in Europe can be difficult (because the SEI is quite rightly focused on its DoD sponsors) and EFQM does not have the presence of Baldrige. And while it's true that all three are more expensive in terms of up-front investment, proponents of Six Sigma, CMMI and Baldrige gather and report data to show that their systems bring business performance improvements – unlike the ISO 9001 community, where the sell seems to be, "The figures show that everyone's doing it so you should too, and those at the top of the food chain demand it. Besides, it works - trust me."

Could it be that the number of European certifications continues to creep up because alternatives to ISO 9001 are expensive and harder to do in Europe than the USA, while the USA commitment to ISO 9001 is gradually reducing because companies, having been introduced to process management by ISO 9001, realize there are better, more powerful methodologies like Six Sigma, CMMI and Baldrige that not only give stronger guidance on continual improvement, but practice what they preach and measure and report their own performance? There are only a few, so far, because only a few realize that while initial investment and audit (assessment) costs in non-ISO 9001 systems are higher, ROI is significant, measurable and delivered consistently; and that with good leadership and relationship management, customers can be persuaded to accept better systems in lieu of ISO 9001 certification.

It would be quite possible for the ISO 9001 community to move in the same direction, and TL 9000 provides an example. (TL 9000 is not diluting the ISO 9001 certificate numbers because, formally, organizations get both an ISO 9001 certificate for the basic management system, and a TL 9000 certificate for the additional telecom-specific requirements and measurements.) It's only for telecom suppliers, it's based on ISO 9001, and it includes mandatory reporting of measurements that are of critical interest to telecom customers like on-time delivery, return rates, outages and problem reporting. The data reporting and analysis enables TL 9000-certified companies to benchmark against each other and improve performance; and it enables the QuEST Forum (the telecom industry association that owns TL 9000) to show measurable performance improvements across the industry as a whole that can be attributed to the use of TL 9000: such data are used to promote adoption of the standard world-wide.

Just my 2c,
Pat