The latest ISO Survey data shows a remarkable reversal in total certificate figures for the United States.  In 2013, the US gained a whopping 8,692 certificates, the largest single year increase for the US in the entire history of ISO 9001.

If true, this offsets a damning six-year run of certificate declines that began in 2007, during which time the US lost over 19,000 certificates in just four years. The following two years (2011 and 2012) saw only 1,076 new certificates gained. (That overlooks the additional loss of  8,633 certificates in 2003.)

The numbers are so fantastic that ISO anticipated disbelief and took the remarkable step to add a note to the data point, saying, [the] significant increase of certificates has been investigated and verified and are accurate.” Even ISO knew the data would be met with some very highly elevated eyebrows.

The 2013 figure represents a huge 33% increase over the previous year. That is the single largest increase since 1998, and back in those days, double-digit increases were common only because the overall totals were so remarkably low. For example, a 1996 increase by 3,851 certificates was equivalent to a 44% increase because the US only had 8,762 total certificates the year before.

I’ve reached out to ISO to explain how they investigated and authenticated the data. As usual, they are not responding.

isosurveyUSA2013

Other Factors?

An analysis of ISO’s data crunching by industrial sector — which doesn’t break itself down by nation, and only presents global numbers — doesn’t show any sudden spike in a given industry that would point to an answer, such as a new rush on ISO 9001 in, say, medical devices or some other industry where the US has a strong presence.  Of the data, the usual to performers remain in place as always, being metal fabrication and construction. The latter (construction) however, took a massive hit in the last year, losing almost 28,000 certificates — the largest drop of all the industries. Given the US’ housing crisis and ongoing construction downturn, you would think this would be a factor in declining US numbers, not the opposite. The industries with the highest growth were retail, pharma and IT — clearly US dominated markets — but these increases were only 2 or 3 thousand each, and wouldn’t account for the US spike even if we credited 100% of those industries to the US and not across the world.

Aligning the numbers to the health of the US economy doesn’t work either. The declines in US totals generally occur a following a major ISO 9001 rewrite –most noticeably in 2003, the three-year deadline for implementing 9001:2000. The recent depressed trend predated what is commonly thought of as the beginning of the US recession, and certainly the US economy has not recovered to any point that would justify the largest sudden increase in ISO 9001 certificates since the Clinton era.

In short, the numbers lack any rational explanation, using the data we have. It is unlikely that ISO will ever provide an explanation without a court order, so we’re stuck.

That doesn’t mean the numbers aren’t true, however. It  just means they are very, very suspicious. If an ISO 9001 renaissance is underway in the US, it would be nice to know how and why, so we can work to sustain it.

There are two ways to rationalize this, and it behooves us to look at both approaches.

The “Hmmm….” Approach

ISO posting from Facebook

ISO posting from Facebook

The first is to be cynical. ISO is a notoriously spin-obsessed organization, simultaneously denying any responsibility for ISO 9001 certification while at the same time hypocritically touting ISO 9001 certificate totals to justify its relevance. Each year the ISO Survey data is published with ridiculous, often truth-stretched proclamations by the ISO General Secretary or ISO staffers. This year, a press release indicated that a global 4% increase meant “getting certified to ISO management systems is still very much a priority.” (How can anything done by a mere 4% of any group be a “priority”?)

And remember, this is the organization that is trying to curb free speech by threatening to sue people who merely discuss its standards in a critical light.

Furthermore, whereas previous years relied on objective analysis by AC Nielsen — who has a reputation to uphold and would be unlikely to skew the data — it appears that for 2013, ISO did not utilize Nielsen, but only numbers submitted by the IAF. Again, ISO has not responded to queries regarding AC Nielsen’s role in the 2013 data, or if they were canned, which only increases the suspicion.

And, if the recent news is true, remember that ISO has dropped the plans to create the CERTO database that would have provided real-time, always-accurate data on ISO 9001 certificate totals without the need for anyone to do annual number crunching. ISO reportedly caved (yet again) to the whining of ISO 9001 registrars, who don’t want to share their data.

So any suspicion that ISO gets is the product of their own making.

The “YAY!” Approach

The second way to look at this is just to accept it as fact, and revel in it. If the US is having an ISO 9001 resurgence, this can only be a good thing for US companies and the US economy. ISO 9001 not only helps companies provide a superior product or service, it helps create jobs when those successful ISO 9001 companies have to hire more people, and grant promotions to their existing workforce.

But, as I said, we need to discover why, in order to be ready to support this growth. If it’s being driven by government or OEM contracts, then understanding those contracts is critical. If it’s being driven by a rush to improve companies and processes, than our focus must be on how to ensure implementation programs do just that. If it’s being driven by a need to beat the competition on the marketing front, then that must be understood as well.

Either way, the data presents more questions than it answers.We need to keep pushing for those answers to either hold ISO accountable for accurate reporting, or to figure out how to maintain this new reality.

 

About Christopher Paris

Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 30 years' experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the author of Surviving ISO 9001 and Surviving AS9100. He reviews wines for the irreverent wine blog, Winepisser.

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