Whatever is going on over at Lloyds Register (LRQA) sure is trippy. I’m not sure what type of drug one needs to lose an entire country, but whatever it is, they have it in great supply over at the LRQA home office.
As if the strange-enough-already case of how LRQA certified the Hungarian branch of Hoerbiger Kompressortechnik Holding GmbH, despite having discovered the company was circulating photoshopped LRQA certificates in order to win contracts, wasn’t enough, now it appears the LRQA Hungary office doesn’t exist. Or maybe it did, and got lost. Or maybe it does, and someone forgot. Or maybe that weird donut in Geneva sucked it into a manmade black hole. Who knows?
Research into the Hoerbiger mess continues, even as LRQA prepares its next lawsuit response to our complaint, and in the most recent twist we found out that the Hungarian office for LRQA doesn’t even appear on the LRQA list of European offices. In response to a query, LRQA rep Denise Robinson merely said, “You are correct, Hungary is not listed as a global office on the LRQA website. I have contacted our marketing team to look into this.”
LRQA listing of offices jumps from Greece to Italy — no Hungarian office listed.
Emails to LRQA Hungary have gone unanswered completely, making us wonder if the entire office was sucked into the Great Pit, and the Old Ones are nibbling on Budapest auditors as an appetizer for their inevitable feasting on the souls of all humanity.
Making things more ridiculous curious is the fact that UKAS does not list the Hungary office on its listing of LRQA accredited offices. Only offices in UK, USA and 14 other nations are shown. We are following up with UKAS to find out if the Hungary office is covered by one of the other accredited offices, just to make sure.
(UPDATE 2/12: UKAS has written and confirmed that LRQA is accredited to release certificates through its office in Hungary.)
Relative to our complaint, it’s another strange wrinkle in the fabric of reality, since the once-fake, now-real Hoerbiger Hungary ISO 9001 certificate was issued by LRQA EMEA Mft, the Hungarian office, and it clearly bears the UKAS logo. UKAS has been copied on all our correspondence regarding the LRQA complaint, and so far has remained silent.
You know, if everyone just followed the damn rules, these things would go a lot easier.
Sigh.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
