Surprising no one except a single nomadic wanderer lost in the Patagonian wastelands, the world’s certification bodies are going to assess and extra fee for conducting ISO 9001:2015 certifications for companies already certified to the 2008 version. How this makes sense is as much a mystery as to how that nomadic wanderer wound up in Patagonia.
Now one might make an argument that CBs need to add some time if you wanted to upgrade your certification during a routine surveillance audit, since those are just partial spot-checks anyway. But the CBs are announcing that even if you wait for your normal 3-year re-certification, they are still going to have to add time to assess you against the 2015 version.
Which means, in effect, only those companies who undergo a brand new, initial certification will actually get the 2015 services “for free” since it will just be part of the normal process. Anyone else is going to have to pony up some extra dough. (In Patagonia, ponies make dough. Look it up.)
Various CBs are trotting out assorted explanations that, natch, make no damn sense. I’ll let you encounter them yourself, since they’re so ridiculous, I can’t even be bothered to repeat them here. Suffice it to say, it’s a scam, and the CBs are again leading the vanguard in the quest to rip off their clients.
In related news, Patagonian scientists are working on a way to medically alter normal human beings into ISO 9001 certification sales reps by surgically removing the part of the brain responsible for ethics, decency and shame.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 30 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 a pulp novella called DR. CUBA.
