Latest ISO Survey Data Paints Grim Picture for ISO 9001

ISO has published its latest ISO Survey of worldwide certification totals, and the data reveals another year of declining interest in the standard. At the same time, ISO also all but throws the certification bodies (CBs) under the bus by blaming data disparities on them entirely.  Says ISO:

The fluctuation in number of certificates from year to year is largely due to the variability in response from individual certification bodies. Despite our best efforts to display consistent results, this is not always possible as we cannot guarantee the same participation rate.

And

… there are fluctuations in the number of certificates from year to year due to the variability in numbers of certificates reported each year by individual certification bodies, inconsistent participation of some certification bodies that contribute to the survey one year but not the next [and] the participation of new certification bodies.

Even ISO can’t trust the CBs, and that’s like saying the viper can’t get along with that python.

Worldwide Disinterest

To highlight the bleak picture, 2014 showed the smallest increase in worldwide ISO 9001 totals in its history, if we discount the two years where ISO 9001 lost certificates entirely. 2014 saw in increase of only 8,709 certificates from the previous year; for a 1% increase.

ISO explains this abysmal performance as “gradually reaching stability,” an argument they have trotted out for decades. Bu we’ll get to that in a moment.

National Declines, Too

At the nation-level, things aren’t better. Overall, a majority of nations shed certificates rather than gained them. If we look at the delta between 2013 and 2014, 55% of nations showed a drop in certificates.

However, seeing as how ISO has reported so much number-fudging by CBs between the years 2013 and 2014, a better picture would be to review overall growth or decline, from 1993 through 2014. To do this we analyzed the number of nations which had a lower cert total in 2014 as compared to the highest cert total from any previous year, thus indicating the nation suffered an overall loss in certificates throughout the life of ISO 9001. When calculating thus, a whopping 69% of nations show less certificates now than at a previous point in their history.

If we discount the Russian Federation and Ukraine (keep reading, and you will see why), we find the top 20 nations that have abandoned ISO 9001 are led by major international players such as Japan, UK, USA and Spain.

US Numbers

In the US, the picture remains bleak, worsened still by the admission that one major CB hosed up the numbers, conveniently padding 2013’s numbers to unrealistic levels. Even if we look past this, the overall health of ISO 9001 in the US is not good.

By including the pre-2000 data, we get an unreliable trend line for the post-millennium ISO 9001 uptake. Instead, by analyzing only the data from 2000 on, we see the US continues an overall slide, despite all the bluster by American CB sales reps.

The US numbers are still highly suspect, as there appears to be no economic or ISO-driven reason why, in 2013, there was a massive spike in American certifications. Government mandates for ISO 9001 are down, the economy is still poor, and typically we see a flattening of certs just prior to the release of a highly-publicized “new version” of the standard. The numbers defy all logic, and are probably still grossly infected. I would estimate the real number of US certs is still hovering near the 25,000 mark, and not anywhere near the 33,000 as published. It’s not an unreasonable assumption either; if ISO can admit that a US registrar made an error to the tune of nearly 2,000 certificates (in 2013), it’s not a stretch to imagine they inflated the numbers by another 5,000 or so. After all, ISO doesn’t check, and it benefits the CBs to lie so that their clients never catch wind that ISO 9001 is on the decline.

Aphasia in Asia

China and India are ISO’s darlings, and often the go-to star pupil whom ISO points to in order to provide some sense that there are nations that still care about ISO 9001. Remember, just two years ago ex-TC 176 Chair Gary Cort hung his hat on the “China argument” just before quitting the TC entirely:

Ignoring the explosive growth that occurred before 1997 (as ISO 9001 was introduced into a completely new market in China), the growth rate in China has been between 100% and 200% ever since. This means that in every year since 1997, the number of ISO 9001 registrations has either doubled or tripled over the year before.

So how are the two nations faring? Are they still pushing up ISO 9001 totals and fueling ISO’s spin machine? Not so much, it turns out. The data for China shows the nation has flatlined for four years. So much for “doubled or tripled” growth rates:

In India, the nation suffered a massive 6-year downward slide in certs, and still remains beneath its 2008 high point, even with many of those certs suspected to be counterfeit:

So bad are these numbers, ISO has distanced itself from its previous poster children, and the words “China” and “India” don’t appear at all in the Executive Summary‘s discussions on ISO 9001. ISO is fickle like that.

From Russia With Bullshit

Meanwhile, the country that likes their leaders bare-chested and wrestling radioactive alligators provides equally enigmatic ISO Survey numbers, and it’s not clear why ISO is allowing them to be included. The Russian Federation showed what appears to have been a fake spike in 2009 and 2010, which was then course-corrected. In fact, the ISO Survey includes a note that “the figures include certificates accredited by national accredited bodies not members of the IAF” which contradicts the report’s claim that “the ISO Survey counts the number of certificates issued by certification bodies that have been accredited by members of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF).” So which is it? Why can’t ISO merely subtract the non-IAF numbers and get a correct figure? If ISO can tolerate a number that artificially spikes a single nation’s totals by 50,000, can the data be trusted at all?

Russia’s frenemy Ukraine is in a similar lodka, with utterly unreliable data that gunks up the entire picture. In Ukraine’s case, they started with clearly bogus figures in 2001 and 2002, and then flatlined with the numbers were corrected. For current analysis, this doesn’t make much of a difference, but it does point to ISO’s decades-long struggle to figure out how to gather what must be the easiest data in the world to collect.

Certification Bodies Tie Petticoated Women to Train Tracks, No One Surprised

In 2013, the ISO Survey began to report a cryptic rationale for a handful of entries which would clearly raise eyebrows. My suspicion is that AC Nielsen — the research firm that does ISO’s number crunching — knows its reputation is on the line for publishing junk data, and wanted to inoculate itself at least a little bit these inconsistent ISO Survey figures. Nielsen has more to lose in this than ISO does.

This year the number of these notes grew in number. Furthermore, they point to a serious breach of trust by at least one “major contributor” (CB). It seems a CB reported grossly inflated numbers in 2013, as we had predicted last year when the 23rd Cycle Survey came out. The problems fall into two primary categories: uneven participation by CBs and incorrect data provided in 2013.

While it’s likely a single CB (and, I’d bet, a single CB sales rep) was responsible for all the entries which indicate “1 major contributor” we don’t have the firm evidence to confirm this, nor do we know which CB. I have my ideas, but since they’re all such insidious bastards, who knows? (If anyone has the inside track on this, drop me a line.)

Either way, it’s embarrassing for ISO. In the 2013 report, ISO bragged about its “Top 10 Countries for ISO 9001 Growth”:

Now, we find that three of the “Top Ten 2013” countries included flawed data: USA, Germany and Australia. For 2014’s Top Ten list, the ranking changes fairly significantly after ISO flushes the bad data, although there’s a high likelihood the new list injects data that is equally flawed. Now the US doesn’t appear at all, and we see Slovakia break into the list. (It’s not the first time Slovakia has beaten the US in the ISO 9001 adoption rate game, either. Maybe we should replace the US TAG leaders with a few guys from Banska Bystrica.)

This means that we can rely on the “Top 10” list not at all, and next year the figures will just rearrange themselves into some other random formation.

The data problems are frustrating because they are entirely avoidable; but providing accurate data for public and industry consumption would require ISO to do something completely at odds with its moral code: be honest. I mean, look: ISO has the data on which CBs provided incorrect figures. They could, if they wanted, hand this over to the IAF for an investigation into whether the data was intentionally falsified in order to fraudulently mislead the international market. They choose not to, of course, because honesty and integrity are allergens to ISO. But this once again points to ISO participating in what could be a massive conspiracy to perpetuate fraud against entire national economies.

A Perpetual Maturation Machine

As usual, the ISO Survey’s Executive Summary is rife with marketing spin and fact-free excuses that would make any first grade math student grimace. In addition to the new excuse that the CBs are all liars, ISO then continues to beat the drum that ISO 9001 is “mature” or “stabilized” in order to explain the decline:

Growth has certainly plateaued since the boom times two decades ago, reflecting the current economic uncertainty in the world. Moreover, in countries with a longer established tradition of certification, many of the largest companies are already certified and are branching out to more specific standards.

This isn’t the first time. For the 2011 Survey, Chairman Rob Steele pulled out the “maturity” buzzword:

A number of markets where certification took off in the early 1990s are showing signs of having reached maturity

But Steele was just cribbing from his predecessor. For the 2007 ISO Survey, ISO boasted the same “maturity” argument to explain declining interest:

Certification activity slowed down in anticipation of the forthcoming new edition of ISO 9001, with organizations adopting a “wait and see” attitude, as many did in the run-up to the 2000 edition. The market for certification is maturing in certain countries where this activity began early on.

In fact, as early as 2003, ISO and it’s toadies were blaming declining interest in “saturation” or “maturity” or “plateaus.” Which is astounding, that a thing can exist for 28 years, and have spent half of that time “maturing.”

Of course any declaration of maturity would require one to know the size of the population set (the number of potential ISO 9001 users) which ISO has not established; it would also require one to have trust in the data, which ISO has openly abandoned by declaring the data inherently flawed. For example, when ISO says “many of the largest companies are already certified,” do they know how many “largest companies” there are in the world? Every year I do a little dance with their PR rep and ask them for this data, and every year they deny having it, in the spirit of tradition I have nevertheless sent the same request to ISO’s Laurent Charlet for the inevitable “I dunno” reply.

Here We Go Again

So, some 12 years after I first launched this argument, here I am making it again. Until we get accurate data on ISO 9001 adoption rates, we cannot know how well the standard is being received. Without knowing customer satisfaction rates, we should not tinker with revisions to ISO 9001.

But nevertheless, ISO continues making changes to the standard, against the cries from major industries, bolstered only by its self-created false data and fictional press release spin. Ironically, the authors of a quality management system standard openly and repeatedly reject calls for measurement by data, and allow deeply conflicted certification bodies to trample over entire national economies.

At this point it’s probably a foregone conclusion that ISO is beyond repair, that its officers and functionaries are far too conflicted, far too political, and far too morally bankrupt to expect change. What is likely to happen is that ISO will continue to pump out nonsense, while the world moves to new and better standards created outside their sphere of influence. And then, just maybe, these articles will become a quaint marker for all the things they ignored.