by Christopher Paris | Oct 15, 2018 | Humor |
For years I’ve been complaining about how the aerospace industry is infected with really, really bad FOD posters. I love the FOD Control Corporation‘s products, and their Make it FOD Free manual is required industry reading, but let’s face it, their...
by Christopher Paris | Oct 15, 2018 | Opinion |
Meet Hannelore Font, the former Quality Director of Poly Implant Prothèse. Ms. Font was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the PIP breast implant scandal, where it was discovered the company had intentionally used lower-quality industrial...
by Christopher Paris | Oct 12, 2018 | Opinion |
The lengths ISO industry consultants and sales reps will go to in order to spin truth is getting out of hand. It’s become routine to be able to point out the overt falsehoods in most of the marketing done by certification bodies, for example; just look at that...
by Christopher Paris | Sep 21, 2018 | Opinion |
Quality assurance expert Mike Gospodinsky is pursuing his doctorate, and needs volunteers to fill out this survey on their experiences with “remote auditing techniques” in the ISO 9001 and other management system auditing schemes. The survey should take...
by Christopher Paris | Sep 15, 2018 | Opinion |
As reported earlier, ISO has just released its latest ISO Survey report, with data up to 2017. This report collects the total certifications for ISO 9001, 14001 and other standards, and is typically trotted out by ISO as a marketing piece, and typically with some...
by Christopher Paris | Sep 11, 2018 | Opinion |
The William Troy leadership era of ASQ will go down in history as being beset by the strangest, backward management decisions ever. Not only has ASQ forced its members to go all-in on supporting China — even pushing the new Board Chair Elmer Corbin into telling...
by Christopher Paris | Sep 10, 2018 | Opinion |
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) purports to be the UK’s advertising watchdog agency, tasked with issuing official rulings sanctioning British companies that engage in false advertising. In 1997, the ASA cited BSI for false advertising after a complaint...
by Christopher Paris | Sep 10, 2018 | Opinion |
It’s not clear what the thinking process is over at the ASQ headquarters, but it’s increasingly bizarre. CEO William Troy, General Counsel Ann Jordan and the ASQ Board have lost an incredible opportunity to de-escalate a growing conflict between ASQ and...
by Christopher Paris | Sep 7, 2018 | Opinion, Services |
More and more, aerospace primes like Lockheed, Boeing and Northup are demanding their suppliers pursue Nadcap accreditation for key processes. Eventually, if you’re selling something to these companies, you are going to see a Nadcap flowdown hit your door. What...
by Christopher Paris | Aug 24, 2018 | Opinion |
The IAQG Supply Chain Management Handbook (SCMH) provides a large collection of AS9100 support materials, helping companies to understand the requirements of AS9100 and then guidance on how to implement them. In some cases, the material is very good, such as their...
by Christopher Paris | Aug 4, 2018 | Opinion |
NASA has announced the names of the astronauts chosen to fly in the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and Boeing’s Starliner, and the list includes Sunita Williams. Williams will be on team Boeing, but she had previously operated the International Space Station robotic...
by Christopher Paris | Aug 1, 2018 | Opinion |
Quick hit: I urge those who are tasked with writing ISO 9001 procedures or quality system documentation to read this excellent article by Mark Nichol of Daily Writing Tips. I’ll forgive the site for using a number in the headline, making it look click-baity,...
by Christopher Paris | Jul 27, 2018 | Humor, Opinion |
I’ve completed the presentation materials for a short, 45-minute ASQ dinner presentation entitled “Three Steps ASQ Must Take To Become A Member-Focused Organization,” so am inviting one plucky ASQ Section to dare the Milwaukee HQ and book it. My...
by Christopher Paris | Jul 13, 2018 | Best Of, Opinion |
[The following is a full sample chapter from my book Surviving ISO 9001:2015. It discusses how ISO mutated the definition of the word “consensus” so that it actually means the opposite of the common meaning, in order to ensure it can publish standards...
by Christopher Paris | Jul 9, 2018 | Opinion |
The IAF just released an update to its Mandatory Document # 4 (“MD4”), entitled “The Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) For Auditing / Assessment Purposes.” You can download that mouthful here. Essentially, the IAF’s...
by Christopher Paris | Jul 4, 2018 | Opinion |
Recently it was learned that Sheronda Jeffries, a rising star in the ISO 9001 scene and an influential member of the US TAG to TC 176 which authors the ISO 9000 series of standards, had polled members of her other organization, the Telecommunications Industry of...
by Christopher Paris | Jul 3, 2018 | Opinion |
ISO consultant and previous ASQ Quality Press author Milt Dentch has released a white paper called “The Negative Impact of Annex SL on ISO Management Systems Standards,” and it’s a remarkable read. You can download the PDF file here. Dentch is the...
by Christopher Paris | Jun 20, 2018 | Opinion |
ASQ is trying (again) to get a discussion forum board running on its website. Only members can post, but everyone can read it, and right now there’s a fairly remarkable exchange going on since early May launched by member Doug Sadtler. The discussion was over...
by Christopher Paris | Jun 7, 2018 | Opinion |
The outcome on this was expected, but at least now it’s official. Despite the World Trade Organization developing international regulations governing trade, the WTO actually has no mechanism to enforce those regulations when violations are carried out by an...
by Christopher Paris | Jun 6, 2018 | Opinion |
It only took a few days for plucky O-Fans and ASQ members to nominate me for the upcoming Crosby Medal, awarded to distinguished authors of a book on quality assurance. As I wrote then, there’s no chance I’m going to win — ASQ is trying to come up...
by Christopher Paris | Jun 5, 2018 | Opinion |
File this in the ever-expanding “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” section of your registrar irony file drawer. Alcumus, the mother company for registrar ISOQAR (UK) whose tagline is “Your Trusted Partner,” has admitted that it was inadvertently...
by Christopher Paris | May 29, 2018 | Humor, Opinion |
ASQ is holding their annual Crosby Medal nomination award, and is soliciting nominations for finalists. The Crosby Medal “is presented to the author(s) of a distinguished book that contributes to quality management.” I think that Surviving ISO 9001:2015...
by Christopher Paris | May 29, 2018 | Opinion |
Meet Jeroen Vanlerberghe of Belgium. He’s a “Senior Expert Management Standards and Systems” at the Bureau voor Normalisatie, the official Belgian standards body. Prior to becoming an “expert” on standards, he worked as a Business...
by Christopher Paris | May 28, 2018 | Opinion |
If you were to read the history books — and ones that don’t go back particularly far — you’d find out that China is the enemy of the United States. We fought multiple wars to keep the Chinese communist expansion from bulging ever further...
by Christopher Paris | May 26, 2018 | Opinion |
ISO has released a survey for members only — specifically management system Technical Committees that draft management system standards like ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 — asking about their experiences with Annex SL and the “high level structure”...
by Christopher Paris | May 23, 2018 | Humor |
“Peter W,” the un-powered human sidekick of superhero Deadpool in the latest movie Deadpool 2 is totally trolling LinkedIn, and the motivational message obsessed goons on that social network don’t even notice. It’s mind-blowing. In the move,...
by Christopher Paris | May 18, 2018 | Opinion |
It’s probably not a shocking headline but back in 2014, Boeing’s Tim Lee, he of the IAQG’s Registration Management Committee (RMC), just “went there” and referred to unaccredited AS9100 certificates as “bogus,”...
by Christopher Paris | May 15, 2018 | Opinion |
As has been reported here for some time, the leadership of the US Technical Advisory Group to ISO TC 176, the official group that develops the US drafts of the ISO 9000 family of standards, is comprised largely of private consultants to benefit financially from making...
by Christopher Paris | May 15, 2018 | Opinion |
I forget just how I came across the gem “4 to 10: Confessions of a Management Representative” by Deepu Krishnan, but I am glad I did. I downloaded it some time ago, and just got around to reading it. I’ve discovered this light, easy read is one of...
by Christopher Paris | May 14, 2018 | News |
I hadn’t made a decision when I published the press releases announcing my next book, Surviving AS9100 Rev. D, but have since firmed up the final book outline. Yes, the book will contain entire sections on implementing AS9110 Rev. C for aircraft repair stations...
by Christopher Paris | May 10, 2018 | Opinion |
Meet Scott Morrison of Elizabethtown KY, a Lead Auditor with the registrar SAI Global. Morrison has a problem with Oxebridge, and out of the blue he felt it was necessary to lay it all down. Mind you, I have no idea who he is, never heard of him, and can’t find...
by Christopher Paris | May 10, 2018 | News |
Yes, true believers, it’s true. I’ve been secretly working on my next bestseller, Surviving AS9100 Rev. D: How To Implement the Aerospace Quality Management System Standard Without Crashing Into Anything. And just as we did with my last book, Surviving ISO...
by Christopher Paris | May 9, 2018 | Humor |
This is Part IV of our ongoing series where we look back at some recent editorial graphics that ran alongside Oxebridge posts. See Part I of this series here, Part II here and Part III here. Those Bloody Bastards This graphic, erm, graphic was cut from an article on...
by Christopher Paris | May 8, 2018 | Opinion |
The Daryl Guberman YouTube channel has grown to gargantuan proportions, not in actual views of any of his videos (which tend to average about 30 each), but in the massive quantity of videos published. To date, Daryl Guberman has published over 1,000 videos accusing...
by Christopher Paris | May 8, 2018 | Opinion |
As I have said before, there are generally two types of ISO auditors: the “tin badge sheriff” who intends on proving how smart he is by angrily demanding you rebuild your QMS to his liking upon (the empty) threat of decertification, and the “best...
by Christopher Paris | May 7, 2018 | Opinion |
ISO has struggled with process management for decades. Prior to the 2000 release of ISO 9001, critics chastised the standard for not adopting the process approach put forward by quality experts like Deming, Shewhart and Ishikawa, decades earlier. In 2000, ISO 9001...
by Christopher Paris | May 1, 2018 | Opinion |
I’m consistently confused by how the consultants in the quality management field consistently tie their business model to the whims and proclamations of ISO and its various attendants, such as the registrars and accreditation bodies. This makes no sense, and...
by Christopher Paris | Apr 29, 2018 | Opinion |
I’m reading through reams of legal filings in the Tsamota v. ANAB lawsuit, and it’s a treasure trove of nerdy, standards-wonk stuff placed into a courtroom setting. If you recall, Tsamota is suing ANAB for canceling its accreditation application process by...
by Christopher Paris | Apr 25, 2018 | Opinion |
I’ve written extensively about the “myth of the integrated management system,” or IMS. As I wrote in my book Surviving ISO 9001:2015, the IMS was created by ISO in order to sell standards in bulk under the false premise that companies wanted to join...
by Christopher Paris | Apr 24, 2018 | Best Of, Guidance Document |
As written about a lot on this site, ISO 9001 and AS9100 auditors do an awful lot of consulting during audits, even though it’s prohibited; after all, the last time an industry tolerated consultants auditing their own work, we got the Enron scandal and...
by Christopher Paris | Apr 17, 2018 | Opinion |
The other day I wrote an article “Auditors Hide Consulting Under “Opportunity For Improvement Guise” and it got tremendous feedback. One reader from a large aerospace manufacturing firm wrote the following, and it’s republished with permission: I just had...
by Christopher Paris | Apr 12, 2018 | Opinion |
As you know, ISO 9001 and AS9100 certification body (CB) auditors are disallowed from providing consulting. This is to prevent conflicts of interest where the auditor then winds up assessing their own work; if you take their advice, they are more likely to grant you...
by Christopher Paris | Apr 12, 2018 | Opinion |
Here’s an interesting angle, prompted by my article the other day of how ISO 9001 and AS9100 registrars are ignoring major nonconformities now, to ensure they can get through the backlog of audits prompted by this ridiculous September 2018 transition deadline....
by Christopher Paris | Apr 7, 2018 | Opinion |
So, in their self-created, mad rush to get companies certified before a self-created mad September 2018 deadline, the world’s ISO 9001 and AS9100 registrars have come up with a new trick: ignore major nonconformities! In what is a disturbing trend, I am seeing...
by Christopher Paris | Apr 6, 2018 | Opinion |
Quick update for SAI Global clients. It seems their accreditation for ISO 9001 and some other standards was restored, but not for AS9100. But it’s murky, and I’m not entirely clear on it. Why? Because as usual, the ANAB website is a disaster. If you search...
by Christopher Paris | Mar 25, 2018 | Opinion |
As reported the other day, UKAS issued a bizarre “technical bulletin” allowing its accredited registrars to offer unaccredited certificates, even though that arrangement is a violation of ISO 17021, the accreditation rules. Even stranger, an email sent by...
by Christopher Paris | Mar 20, 2018 | Opinion |
[Updated below with UKAS response.] The other day I wrote that BSI had issued a certificate to ISO 45001, the new occupational safety and health standard, within minutes of the standard being released. That should be impossible, of course, under normal international...
by Christopher Paris | Mar 16, 2018 | Opinion |
When ISO 9001:2015 was released, BSI had already begun issuing certificates within hours of that release, defying all belief. This helped ensure that the world knew the entire certification scheme is a joke. BSI claimed they were able to do this because they had...
by Christopher Paris | Mar 13, 2018 | Opinion |
In the United States, “not-for-profit” organizations typically have to file their tax returns publicly. As a result, they are often easily retrieved, and have juicy nuggets of interesting information. The International Accreditation Forum (IAF) is a...
by Christopher Paris | Mar 8, 2018 | Opinion |
Here’s an interesting, if offbeat, little nugget. Many of the world’s ISO certification bodies (CBs) are borrowing each other’s Confidentiality Policies in order to get themselves accredited. That’s not illegal, and it’s probably not even...
