Lotus car designer Colin Chapman is quoted as having said the key to good car design is “add lightness.” The IAQG wants to do the same thing, but add less functionality. Or something.
The new OASIS version 3 is a mess. Apparently, the only reason it was updated was to give Intact the contract for maintaining the thing, probably because someone at IAQG has a buddy handshake deal with Intact behind the scenes. By all appearances, they just took the existing code, put it in a new web-facing wrapper, and then removed some key features.
For one, you used to be able to filter AS9100 certification bodies by geographic locations. Now, that feature is gone. The other day I was looking for an AS9120 CB in Australia, and had to scroll through the entire list to find one. Want a CB that offers a certain standard? Get scrolling because there’s no filter. Want a CB that is local to Milwaukee? Scroll, bitch.
Next, there are no notifications. If you enter a Feedback ticket — and I think I’m the only guy on the planet who does it — there’s no way to know when someone has replied to it, if it’s closed, etc. You have to literally log in every day and check your tickets manually. But IAQG takes your email address, of course, as a condition of creating an account. They just then never use it to send you any notifications. I bet they are selling your email to someone, though, for a little extra cash.
Things don’t get much better if you’re an AS9100-certified company and have to enter your audit responses, etc. The forms are still largely the same as they were under the prior version, with no improvements and just as much clutter and confusion. Again, it’s not at all clear why they updated OASIS if they were going to just keep everything that was bad, and remove the actual useful features.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 30 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
