The Truth About ISO Grants No One Wants You to Know
A lot of US consultants claim they have access to "ISO grants" which can help companies cut their consulting and training bill. While this is true, the consultants often use their clients ignorance of the grants to either falsely bolster their reputations, or even...
ISO 9001 Certificates in China: How Fake Are They?
ISO has had to issue "corrected" numbers on national ISO 9001 totals for countries such as Russia, Ukraine and others; of the million + total certificates reported, over 100,000 were determined to be "fake" and as many as 50,000 - 75,000 more are suspect. And yet so...
Out of the Seldon Crisis: Asimov, Deming and AS9100
In Isaac Asimov's groundbreaking science fiction Foundation series of novels, the idea of the "Seldon Crisis" is introduced, named after the fictional character, Hari Seldon. In the far flung future, pure scientific application is able to accurately predict future...
IRCA Trainer Says Audit Sampling is Based on “Available Time”
(UPDATED 12/17/2014 - see below) IRCA ISO 9010 Lead Assessor trainer, and self-published book author, David Seear has spent the better part of the last ten years (or more) pushing a concept he calls "Back to Basics." The collective thesis is tough to suss out, since...
Is This the Best Article on Risk Analysis Ever Written?
Could be. It's from Quality Digest's June 2011 release, but it remains a solid critique of current risk analysis methods, such as FMEA, which rely on arbitrary guesswork and bad math to make critical decisions. As I've said before, by applying numbers to guesses, we...
Did ISO Ignore Nigel Croft on 9001 Release Date?
In going through my old files on ISO 9001:2015, I came across a presentation given by ISO TC176 SC2 Chairman Nigel Croft at the 10th IRCA Forum in Japan, during June of 2011. There's a lot of interesting information in it, but one slide in particular stood out. For...
Soft Grading: Still Alive and Well
Feedback from frustrated prime contractors and other stakeholders during the early 2000's led to a push against the practice by Certification Bodies (CBs) of "soft grading" nonconformities. This is where an auditor finds a nonconformity of a certain severity, but...
Unaccredited Registrar Daryl Guberman Doesn’t Know What Product Certification Is
In a manifesto appearing on the site for his unaccredited ISO 9001 certificate mill G-PMC, owner Daryl Guberman accuses accredited registrars of violating rules he doesn't adhere to himself. Specifically, he calls out certification bodies, including DNV, for failing...
Five Things Consultants Can Do to Fix ISO 9001’s Reputation
ANAB and the accreditation bodies are only one player in the ISO 9001 ecosystem. They, along with the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) are probably in the best position to do the most good in the shortest time, due to their power in the industry, but this...
Five Things ANAB Can Do Right Now to Fix ISO 9001’s Reputation
ISO 9001 in the US is on the decline, and there are many places to lay blame. The infrastructure surrounding ISO 9001 certification scheme is a complex organism, comprised of relationships between clients, consultants, auditors, certification bodies (CBs),...