by Christopher Paris | Feb 14, 2019 | Opinion
For companies purchasing and utilizing electronic components, the firm ERAI is a mandatory resource for information on counterfeit products hitting the market. Recently, ERAI ran a blog post listing a host of websites known or suspected to be selling counterfeit...
by Christopher Paris | Feb 8, 2019 | News, Services
As ISO 9001 certification dies on the vine, the victim of an increasingly corrupt certification system and a decreasingly useful standard, companies are looking for alternatives. ISO 9001 was never intended to guarantee quality, sure, but the fact that illegal drug...
by Christopher Paris | Feb 2, 2019 | Opinion
Well, that was quick. Just hours after publishing an article on how US TAG 176 Chair Paul Palmes went AWOL, I learned that Boeing’s Alan Daniels was elected the new Chair, in a silent and very, very quiet election that no one outside of the TAG even knew...
by Christopher Paris | Feb 2, 2019 | Opinion
(UPDATE: I answered my own question, here. A new TAG Chair was elected, in secret.) Bear with me, because rather than report on a subject, I’m asking an honest answer. I invite anyone with insight to clarify things for me, to the extent that they can (write me...
by Christopher Paris | Feb 1, 2019 | Opinion
I’m not sure what’s worse, ASQ’s hamfisted efforts to get its members to side with China over the United States, or its public-facing bungling of its attempts to do so. A reader caught my article from two days ago on how ASQ’s new pro-China...
by Christopher Paris | Jan 31, 2019 | Opinion
ASQ has really dug in on its support of China, signaling the William Troy leadership era is likely to be marked by bad decisions backed by entrenched inflexibility. It’s not quite a good time to be promoting China, but Troy’s apparently hoping that...
by Christopher Paris | Jan 17, 2019 | Opinion
Smithers has pulled its “ISO 14001 Gap Analysis Tool” which featured just over half of the ISO 14001 standard, copied and pasted, with Smithers invoking copyright over the entire thing. That came within hours of my reporting on their copyright faux pas....
by Christopher Paris | Jan 16, 2019 | Opinion
The IAQG’s Buddy Cressionnie and Alan Daniels are busy booking appearances at the upcoming ISO 9000 Conference, but apparently can’t find the time to answer official questions regarding the AS9100 scheme inside the OASIS “Feedback” system. For...
by Christopher Paris | Jan 15, 2019 | Opinion
UPDATE see below. The registrar Smithers Quality Assessments (SQA) just published an ISO 14001 “gap analysis” tool that includes a massive portion of the ISO 14001:2015 standard itself, meaning you don’t have to actually buy the standard from ISO or...
by Christopher Paris | Jan 14, 2019 | Opinion
The website ISOUpdate.com claims to be an “independent website that aims to provide information, resources, and updates around the Standards and Certification industry,” but if you scratch the surface this doesn’t appear quite true. They popped up...
by Christopher Paris | Jan 9, 2019 | Opinion
UPDATE see below. The International Accreditation Forum (IAF) has released a survey asking respondents about their views on the IAF rules for minimum audit days. These rules, published in IAF “Mandatory Document Nr. 5” (MD5) affect all ISO management...
by Christopher Paris | Jan 6, 2019 | Humor
Oxebridge’s decidedly off-topic sister site, the irreverent wine blog Winepisser.com, has announced its fourth annual Winepisser Best Wine award. You can read which of 150 wines tasted in 2018 came in first, along with some runners-up. In keeping with a newer...
by Christopher Paris | Jan 5, 2019 | Opinion
The recent, and likely prolonged, shutdown of the US government by President Trump and a dysfunctional Congress will have an impact on companies certified to ISO 9001 and AS9100 in interesting ways. For a while I have criticized the ISO certification scheme for its...
by Christopher Paris | Dec 29, 2018 | Opinion
I reported on the fact that Ernst & Young’s financial auditors assessed systems and controls that had also been assessed by ISO 27001 auditors from another EY company, CertifyPoint. That article was then expanded in MarketWatch, who reached out to...
by Christopher Paris | Dec 26, 2018 | Opinion
UPDATED; see below. If you want to talk to a real person at the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), or even drop by their office, you’re going to find that difficult. They’ve scrubbed all evidence of any people who might be involved with the...
by Christopher Paris | Dec 18, 2018 | Opinion
I didn’t see this coming, but buried in a note from ASQ Section 1118 (Middle Tennessee) was this chilling nugget from Chair Doug Sadtler: As the Summer kicked off, ASQ introduced its new social community platform, myASQ. This new platform is designed to be the...
by Christopher Paris | Dec 10, 2018 | Opinion
Annex SL is ISO’s power-grab which strips away the ability of ISO member nations and subject matter experts to draft ISO standards, and hands that power back to the ISO headquarters through its Technical Management Board (TMB). Any ISO member committee that is...
by Christopher Paris | Dec 9, 2018 | Opinion
Today the people of Peru are voting on a dramatic, historic referendum to reshape a government wracked for decades with corruption, brought on by bribes from one company: Odebrecht. In what must be a world first, four ex-presidents are in various states of detention...
by Christopher Paris | Dec 8, 2018 | Opinion
Randox Testing Services is currently under criminal investigation for having falsified forensics testing data, resulting in criminal convictions based on those tests being overturned, and raising into question the results of paternity tests, drug tests, and other...
by Christopher Paris | Dec 8, 2018 | Opinion
The international Japanese news journal Japan Today is running my op-ed, “Japan’s Single Point of Failure in the Data Falsification Scandal.” Give it a click and feel free to post your comments. Join the O-Forum discussion on this post About...
by Christopher Paris | Dec 5, 2018 | News
FLIR Surveillance, Inc. was charged by the US Dept. of State with at least 347 separate violations of the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) and forced to pay a civil penalty of $30,000,000, in a span of breaches that reach back as far as 2008. The FLIR...
by Christopher Paris | Nov 30, 2018 | Opinion
You may remember UK consultant Craig Willetts, a British Daryl Guberman wannabe who uses a host of websites under a host of company names to simultaneously sell ISO 9001 consulting and certification. Mimicking Guberman nearly exactly, he has also published fake press...
by Christopher Paris | Nov 29, 2018 | Humor
With the retirement of President John Knappenberger and former VP Randy Dougherty in self-exile (he’s not quite quit yet, but is in deep hiding), the new ANAB organizational structure has embraced flatness. Still without a permanent replacement for...
by Christopher Paris | Nov 26, 2018 | Humor
Sigh, sometimes it’s so easy, you’d almost think someone on ISO Technical Committee 176 intentionally feeds me material. Recently, TC 176 held one of its tourist excursions plenary sessions, this time in the Azores, that island clutch located nearly a...
by Christopher Paris | Nov 24, 2018 | Humor, Satire
Not to be outdone by ASQ in the arena of craven capitulation, now the UK’s Chartered Quality Institute (CQI), which has its hooks in the British government, has given out a slew of quality awards to some very interesting folks. First up is the architect of...
by Christopher Paris | Nov 24, 2018 | Opinion
To add some data to what we already know, incoming TC 176/SC2 Chair Paul Simpson posted on LinkedIn that an internal survey revealed nearly half of the certification schemes Certification Bodies (CBs) and Accreditation Bodies (ABs) were unaware of auditing guidelines...
by Christopher Paris | Nov 20, 2018 | Opinion
Following up from our report the other day that the new ISO 19011 standard removed a long-standing requirement that demanded auditors “observe and comply with any applicable legal requirements,” — essentially giving CB auditors a “wink-wink,...
by Christopher Paris | Nov 20, 2018 | Opinion
It was a busy week for the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), that plucky body that oversees the entire world’s accreditation scheme for management system certifications. More and more, the evidence is coming forward that the IAF holds a critical role in...
by Christopher Paris | Nov 10, 2018 | Opinion
The IAF has released another of its hyperbolic claims alleging its the greatness of its own customer base while providing exactly zero evidence. This time it has published an article declaring “Transition Rate Confirmed at 93% from IAF Members.” The only...
by Christopher Paris | Nov 9, 2018 | News
[Updated with DQS response below.] The US Dept of Justice has indicted the Chinese semiconductor firm United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), accusing it of working to steal trade secrets from US-based company Micron. UMC holds multiple ISO 9001 certificates issued...
by Christopher Paris | Nov 7, 2018 | Opinion
As Oxebridge makes the slow crawl towards becoming an official CMMI Institute partner — the process is long, but will eventually differentiate us from the crowd of ISO 9001 consultants who falsely claim CMMI expertise — I find it consistently astounding...
by Christopher Paris | Oct 29, 2018 | Opinion
As I mentioned previously, ASQ’s CEO William Troy and Board Chair Elmer Corbin have been busy giving interviews to the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua, throwing the group’s official support to the Chinese government, while knocking that of the United...
by Christopher Paris | Oct 28, 2018 | Humor
Just in time for Halloween, a quick analysis of the IAQG OASIS database reveals that there are dozens of undead zombie auditors currently working in the aerospace industry. The likelihood you will encounter one of these “Ghost Auditors” is slim, but if you...
by Christopher Paris | Oct 28, 2018 | Opinion
Meet the UK’s Peter Snowden, of Quality System Services (QSS) in Derbyshire UK. Mr. Snowden is sending promotional emails for his upcoming 2-day ISO 9001:2015 Internal Auditor Training classes while falsely claiming that such courses are mandatory per...
by Christopher Paris | Oct 28, 2018 | Opinion
Lean practitioner Samuel Selay died in a kayak accident on Lake Elsinore (California). He was only 34 years old and leaves behind his wife Brittney and four young children. A former Marine, I met Sam when I provided his group ISO 9001:2015 training at the Marine...
by Christopher Paris | Oct 23, 2018 | Humor
File this in the “Someone Other Than Oxebridge Said It” department. UK nuclear consultant and professional cartoonist Martin Wakeman has published a series of cartoons slamming ISO for developing vague and confusing standards designed to generate revenue...
by Christopher Paris | Oct 19, 2018 | Opinion
As reported, the ISO Technical Management Board (TMB) is at it again, convening a group to begin an early “fix” of Annex SL, the document that defines the mandatory “high-level structure” (HLS) that all ISO management system standards have to...
by Christopher Paris | Oct 18, 2018 | Opinion
ASQ is suffering from a serious image problem in recent years. Not only is its membership increasingly irritated by hamfisted decisions made by the ASQ headquarters in Milwaukee, but the organization has taken bizarre, backward-facing positions on key issues such as...
by Christopher Paris | Oct 16, 2018 | Opinion
It was probably to be expected, as the same thing happened with my first book, but the publication date for Surviving AS9100 Rev. D is slipping. I promised October, but I’m still writing it and October is halfway over, so I am not sure when this will be edited...
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...
