Quick hit. Here’s a copy of a presentation given to the US TAG to TC 176 this month by Baskar Kotte, which acts as a primer of sorts on the relationship between the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the ISO Committee on Conformity Assessment (CASCO.)
PowerPoint presentation here . You have to right-click, then select “save as.” (.pptx file, 1.3 Mb.)
It wasn’t intended as such, but it winds up being a pretty revealing look at the incestuous relationships between the various players. When you look at this critically, you see the lines between the US TAG, the IAF, CASCO and even ASQ are so blurred, it’s nearly impossible to tell them apart. I suspect that reality was one reason the presentation was needed in the first place.
What this means is that the same people who are writing ISO 9001 are later writing the standards for management of the ISO 9001 registrars, and then performing the oversight of those registrars, as well as writing the standards for auditors and performing the training of those auditors. And the money all flows to the same few people, no matter which angle you look at it from.
And left entirely outside of this bubble? The actual end users of ISO 9001.
Fun game you can play: find out how many of the allegedly-independent organizations named have the same Milwaukee WI street address!
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
