ANAB has finally granted accreditation to Smithers Quality Assessments to the snow and ice management standard, SN9001, closing a weird, incestuous feedback loop that would boggle the mind, if it weren’t all so ridiculously dull. Let’s try to spice it up.
The Characters
It comes off like a Game of Thrones episode, although it’s not clear who threw the kid from the tower and started it all. The players are as follows:
House ASCA – the American Snow Contractors Association, headed by Kevin Gilbride. This is an industry organization for snow contractors, those folks who plow snow during… um… snowstorms. They command an army of the undead.
House Smithers – led by Jeanette Preston. Smithers Quality Assessments is a registrar that issues certifications for ISO 9001 and other standards. Preston is also a shapeshifter.
House ANAB – formerly represented by Scott Richter, who was killed by a White Walker retired after his work with SN9001 was completed. Mr. Richter was apparently a blacksmith, with an expertise in armor.
House IAAR – the Independent Association of Accredited Registrars, represented by Ms. Preston as well, albeit in her alternate form. IAAR is an industry cabal of registrars who meet in secret cliffside caves to plan their invasions of the hill people.
House Mills – an insurance company serving the snow and ice management industry. They are born of black magic because — let’s face it — they’re an insurance company.
The Plot
Here’s what we think happened. ASCA was formed as an industry organization as competition with a pre-existing group (SIMA). In order to differentiate itself from SIMA, ASCA began offering various certification programs to its members. At some point, ASCA’s Gilbride met with Smithers’ Preston, and presumably over too many coffees, they cooked up a scheme to create an ISO 9001-style quality system certification program for snow contractors. After many months of consulting the dictionary, they discovered the letters “s” and “n” were at the front of the word “snow” so they named this effort “SN 9001.”
Using her secondary role at the IAAR, Ms. Preston began discussing this effort and bumped into Mr. Richter of ANAB. Richter had already created another wacko sector specific standard for body armor manufacturers, called BA 9000. Richter agreed to let Preston and Gilbride take his text and add a few sentences about snow, and re-brand it SN9001. Then, ANAB would offer recognition of the standard by accrediting Smithers.
Perhaps knowing most snow contractors are impossibly small companies that cannot afford the $10,000 – $20,000 first-year price tag of ISO 9001, Gilbride contacted a representative of Mills Insurance, who was also on the board of ASCA. Together they developed a marketing narrative that SN9001 would reduce insurance premiums for its users, even though this myth had been disproved within ISO 9001 back in the late 1980’s. Gilbride, ANAB and Smithers then began a yearlong publicity push announcing the upcoming SN9001, and insisting it would automatically reduce insurance premiums; when questioned, Mills Insurance could be counted on to trot out vague, but glowing support.
The problem, of course, is that Mills Insurance is still subject to underwriters, and both Mills and ASCA were eventually forced to admit that, no, SN9001 wouldn’t automatically reduce insurance premiums, unless a vast portion of the industry adopted it and resulted in an industry-wide reduction in claims. They’ve left that part out of their marketing, though, and ANAB and Smithers continue to spread the lie.
The Conflict
In the past, sector specific standards, like AS9100 for aerospace or QS9000 for automotive, were developed by actual industry organizations representing a broad spectrum of user companies. In the SN9001 case, the entire thing was cobbled together by the organizations who would later charge money for it, relying on the work of Richter and Preston, neither of whom had five minutes of experience in the snow and ice industry.
In short, without any international consensus, and without any demand from actual snow contracting companies, ASCA created a QMS certification program from thin air, with the help of three other parties, all of whom would get a share of the inevitable cash that flowed in:
ASCA would sell the standard, at rates almost $400 higher than even the AS9100 standard for aerospace.
Smithers would sell the certification audits, starting at around ten grand or more.
ANAB would charge Smithers an annual fee for accrediting their SN9001 certificates, to give them legitimacy.
Mills would gain competitive advantage in the industry by (possibly falsely) promoting the myth that SN9001 would reduce insurance premiums, even while it knew that this was nearly impossible.
There’s one shadowy figure lurking in the background, that as yet remains unidentified: the consultant. Someone must be offering these snow contracting companies consulting on SN9001, and it will be interesting to see who it is, and how close their relationship is with Smithers and/or ASCA. (No one will be surprised if it’s John Sedlak.)
Meanwhile, SN9001 presents no appreciable additions to ISO 9001, and snow contractors — if so inclined — could have been advised to merely seek ISO 9001 certification, which has the backing of an entire planet of accreditations behind it, and would cost significantly less, while delivering the exact same end result. It would have also allowed snow contractors to select one of hundreds of registrars, instead of being forced to use only one — Smithers — the same organization that happened to create the standard in the first place. Under ISO 9001, if you have a problem with Smithers, you can fire them and hire another registrar. Under SN9001, you are stuck with Smithers.
The Denouement
With ANAB’s incestuous accreditation of Smithers — something which doesn’t even appear to be internationally recognized, since there’s no IAF multilateral agreement related to accreditation bodies just making shit up alongside registrars, and then accrediting them — the unholy loop is closed. Someone somewhere thinks that all their effort has paid off, and they even found a company to undergo the certification audit. (Years of work culminated in a single certification. How is Preston still working at Smithers, seeing how much of their money she threw away?)
So, congrats to all the Houses involved. You have proven that we don’t have to respect ISO 9001, and can create out of whole cloth a variation for any and all possible industry permutations, with all the additional costs and fees, for the sole benefit of those who created it, offering no value to the suckers who sign up for it.
More of our coverage on SN9001 here, and you can see how I ruined their party over at ASCA here.
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
