As we watch the US TAG to TC 176 implode it’s worth taking a look at what, exactly, they  should be doing, if they weren’t a dysfunctional organization run by deeply conflicted consultants.

Don’t take my word for it. Let’s see what the US TAG’s boss, ANSI CEO Joe Bhatia, has to say about the TAG’s mandate and their responsibilities in forming official US national positions. From his 2012 testimony before the US Congress:

The key to our nation’s continued success on the global stage is to make sure that:

1.) all U.S. stakeholder needs and voices are taken into account;
2.) that we approach ISO and IEC with clear and strong national positions both from the technical and policy perspectives; and
3.) that we effectively leverage relationships with our partners internationally to gain support for these positions.

Sounds good. So let’s see how the US TAG 176 fares on each of these ANSI mandates.

Stakeholders

The first ANSI mandate is for the TAG to consider stakeholder needs and voices. As we’ve seen, under the Jarvis/West/Hunt leadership, the voices of consultants in incumbent cronies are nearly the only voices allowed in the TAG. The growth of consultants has mushroomed under their leadership, and the leadership team itself is currently comprised of 70% consultants. Meanwhile, TAG meetings rely on “offline” discussions between the leadership and its selected friends (almost entirely consultants, as well) so that very little opportunities are given to stakeholders to participate. Lorri Hunt’s interpretations of TAG secrecy border on paranoid, where official breakout session minutes are not even distributed among TAG members, lest they be “leaked” to outside parties. She even claims a ban on sharing “information” as innocent ISO’s definition of “consensus,” something already published in public ISO documents.

Recently, the TAG leadership has attempted to claim anonymity rights for members, so that the identity of TAG members is withheld from the public and stakeholders. The TAG has used its official US position in order to intrude on presentations held by non-TAG speakers, and attempted to bully event hosts to replace the speakers with approved TAG consultants, such as the leadership, exposing it to potential FTC violations.

The TAG dominates the publishing sphere, providing nearly all of the reporting and opinion pieces on ISO 9001 within the major quality profession publications, such as Quality Digest. They then promote the work of their consultants on official TAG and ASQ pages, which include only the voices of the TAG leadership and their crony consultants. Prominent authors of previous books and speeches on ISO 9001 are now isolated, unable to get their works published or promoted in the same space.

The TAG members and their consultant supporters have openly and publicly rejected stakeholder feedback as “moronic” and “nonsense,” even claiming that stakeholder concerns are pointless. They have even attempted to block stakeholders from providing feedback to them, against all regulations which require they consider such viewpoints.

Grade: F

Strong National Positions

Here the TAG is tasked with forming “strong national positions.” Without the input of a representative sample of stakeholders (see above), this is a dubious exercise. We have seen strong rejection of the TAG’s approval of ISO 9001 within the US industries, including automotive, aerospace, medical devices and pharmaceutical. For the first time in its history, the idea of entire industries “decoupling” from ISO 9001 has entered the conversation.

Of the three mandates, the TAG fares best here, but it’s still a shameful record.

Grade: C-

International Partnerships

The last mandate is for the US TAG to enhance our international voice by “leveraging relationships with our partners internationally.” This means not only forming our own national position, but then getting other nations to agree to join us, and vote alongside us.

Here the US TAG has been absolutely, woefully, and irresponsibly inept. In fact, under the Jack West mentality of “one nation, one vote,” the TAG leadership doesn’t even know it’s supposed to push other nations to agree with us. Alka Jarvis adopted the same neutered-puppy position, and Craig Williams is prepped to continue this same thinking. In a conversation with me. Williams parroted West nearly word-for-word, claiming “we’re only one country with one vote.” It never dawned on any of them to use the US’ international stature to get countries to vote with us.

Worse still, some in the TAG whined incessantly about Annex SL and the TMB forcing it on them, but no one on the leadership team ever had the foresight to launch an international complaint against the ISO TMB citing WTO violations. In every discussion I have had with every TAG representative, they never even thought of it. Instead, they relied on symbolic gestures and non-binding polls to voice their displeasure, resulting in a being steamrolled by the more powerful European lobby, who were supporting the TMB and Annex SL.

Grade: F

Expel the Little Brat

By any measure, the US TAG has failed in every aspect of its responsibilities, from complying with simple ANSI and ISO rules of procedure and codes of conduct, to meeting the more important mandates of its ANSI mothership and her beleaguered CEO. Yet ANSI has been completely asleep at the switch, refusing to take action when these problems are pointed out, no doubt anxious to just rake in the dough by selling ISO 9001 as an official “American national standard.”

Instead, ANSI should be investigating the US TAG 176 for breaches of rules, conflicts of interest, anti-competitive trade practices, and then disband the entire TAG. They should then form a new committee that follows the rules, starting with a proper composition of members that no longer gives dominance to the conflicted consulting wing. Then, they should install a temporary ANSI representative to oversee all TAG 176 activities until such time as they prove they can operate in an ethical and efficient manner, without the training wheels. They should likewise install an ombudsman to personally process user feedback on TAG performance. If that takes 5-10 years, then so be it.

 

About Christopher Paris

Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 30 years' experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the author of Surviving ISO 9001 and Surviving AS9100. He reviews wines for the irreverent wine blog, Winepisser.

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