We just received the new proposal from our certification body and because we have what was formally called a site extension, all our audit costs have doubled. You can imagine how that was received when I presented it to our Executive Management Team. The "fecal matter hit the impeller". I tried to explain to them that we can't fault our CB (although they are the ones who are benefiting from all of this). It's the IATF (the Audit Nazi's) who created this whole fiasco.
We are all dealing with this mess. The IATF tends to solve localized problems with a very broad brush. China caused a lot of problems by cheating the program, so we all get to suffer. In some cases, this new rule might make sense. But, in many cases, it is like dividing one company in half and auditing it like two separate companies...with separate auditors even... really badly thought out in my opinion.
I would encourage companies that have particularly bad situations to exercise their rights as a "client" and write a polite but firm letter to the IAOB, and send a copy to your CB management. maybe if there is enough of a groundswell of grass roots comments, some degree of reasonable interpretations can be brought to this.
Some examples I would welcome would be:
1. This should only apply to second building with significant operations. Not four people doing Assembly.
2. This should be phased in, in an orderly manner. And the first cycle should be performed and completed by the same auditor as the main site, to get it rolling.
