OK, I'll bite, Jim.
Who, specifically, is in this 'ivory tower' you speak of?
What, specifically, is the problem with a transition programme that says 'you have 3 years, that should be ample time to sort it out amongst yourselves'?
The IAF / ISO TC 176 transition policy is simply a statement of the timetable to be used. Details of what is required is agreed between ABs and CBs (one of whom you work for, I seem to remember).
If some ABs and CBs were in a position to have:
- all personnel involved in the early assessments trained and deemed competent
- accreditation by the AB of the CB for assessment to 9001:2015
- as well as audits carried out by the CB against what they already knew would be in the new standard, and
- any corrective actions reviewed and signed off
.... all of this in place before the standard was issued.
If we accept all this happened then that says the transition timing isn't the problem, so what is, in your opinion?
I've been involved in transition programmes from the early 80s (even pre the 1st edition of 9001
) - the same issues applied each time.
- the new product take up model always applies and that means you get small groups of early adopters and laggards at each end of the lifecycle
- any new auditor competence assessment identifies some variability across the auditor pool - leading to some loss of capacity
- milestones always move to the right - apart from the hard deadline (in this case 15th September 2018
The point of the article is to highlight that the time for action is now. Oh and BTW, Jim, THERE'S NO NEED TO SHOUT.
Enough specifics from me and I may be delayed in responding to any replies. I'm off to find an extending ladder and go off in search of an ivory tower.
I missed this post. I'm not sure why, but it was because I missed it that I responded to Sidney's.
I do both consulting and auditing. As a consultant I with with clients that use a variety of CBs. I really don't see much difference between them. They all have their problems. For example most all of the clients I call on that use different CBs than the one I audit for have never been audited on the use of certification marks and have never received information from the CB about their use.
On more than one occasion I have run into clients that tell me that their CB auditor never leaves the conference room and performs his entire audit by reviewing the objective evidence generated by the internal auditors. This has been with more than one CB.
My clients tell me of CB auditors that have tried to extort them not to write nonconformances, some of which had no merit.
They tell me of CB auditors that write nonconformances not because they found anything wrong, but because the auditor want them to do it his way.
I'm still upset when I hear about CB auditors that insist on the clients using turtle diagrams to define their processes. This happens frequently.
As I explained before, it is unreasonable to release the standard and start the countdown for transition on the same day. There is only so much preparation that can be done before the standard is released, but until it is released the CBs don't know for sure what it will really contain, so auditor training can't realistically be started.
We see things concerning the transition where they say that it is expected that most companies will transition when they are up for recertification, which is on a three year cycle, and then we see that some never have a chance to be ready if their recert date is close to the release date. This alone causes a stack-up near the end.
Some clients (maybe most) don't want to be the early guinea pigs before the auditors and CBs have sorted out the true impact of the new or changed requirements. This is most certainly something that could be improved if some training time were scheduled after release before the beginning of implementation.
I went out of my way to attend webinars for the 2015 standard as soon as they were offered for some time before release, and there wasn't much substance about the actual changes. The first one was disappointing because it dealt more with the reasons and benefits without actually saying much about what the changes would actually be. This diligence on my part didn't help much because the information just was not being disseminated.
Maybe the trenches are different in the UK.
I have a feeling that the US airlines and how they operate in the US may be different where you live, but anyone that did much air travel in the US after United (followed by the other big airlines) started charging for checked luggage. They are not going to stop because it was a big boost in profits when they needed all the help they could get, but it turned the boarding process into hell. The gate agents referred to the gathering of passengers ready to rush the gate when their boarding number was called as "gate lice". This happened so they could rush in and find a place for their carry-on luggage so it would not need to be checked. I have no link for this, but the air travel forums are full of examples of this. Another recent complaint about air travel is how the airlines are installing more seats so they can fill the planes fuller, resulting in less leg room, resulting in a big increase in altercations among the passengers over reclined seats taking away even more of their legroom.
The difference between the airline issues and the transition time for new standards is that the airlines intentionally created the problems. I feel that what is happening with the transition with the standards is done out of benign ignorance of what decisions at the top (ivory tower) effect those in the trenches.
That's why I'm crying out for them to open their eyes.
There has to be a way to expose and ban these charlatans from the auditing world. Registrants that "accept" this type of behavior by their CB auditors have to realize this is totally unacceptable.
