In a surprise to exactly no one, any attempt to do the simplest data mining of ANAB’s public complaints database proves useless, as it just throws up SQL errors.
The database has always been a train wreck, so it’s to be expected. When filing a complaint, one is confronted with a drop down list of criteria that contains multiple duplicate entries, the result of years of data entry errors which were never fixed. For example, when filing a complaint one has to select the source of the complaint. The option list provides at least three different selection options for “other accreditation body” and three possible selections for “government stakeholder.” There’s even two listings for ANAB itself. There is a listing for “certification body” and “certification bodies,” and even one that has a spelling error (“registerd”.) This means the data is polluted from the moment of entry, which thus corrupts any attempt at sorting or data analysis later.
For users trying to get some kind of trend data out of the search feature, it just fails. First, you are only given two options: to view complaints summarized by source (again, already corrupted as indicated above) or by type. Selecting one of those runs the search for about a minute and a half, which is shocking since there are less than 200 entries in the entire database. One assumes it runs on an older technology, such as mice in treadmills.
Then the results come up with a table that includes some clickable links. So, as of right now, the data shows that ANAB processed 19 complaints about “certification body conflicts of interest.” The “19” is a clickable link, which one presumes would return a listing of those particular complaints. Alas, here is what you get instead:
Now, ANAB is under no obligation to provide the public any explanation of anything, much less a searchable, meaningful report on complaints it receives. But as someone who has been reminded (a few times) of how the ISO certification scheme is just fine, thank you, because ANAB gets so few complaints, I’d like to have some data to prove it.
I’d especially like to see those complaints on certification body conflicts of interest, and how many had decisions that came down on the side of the CB. For those that ANAB may have cited (assuming there are any) the next question is to review their size and scope. Does ANAB ever cite anyone? Do they only cite the smaller CBs, as some have suggested? Has any conflict of interest complaint ever resulted in a CB losing their accreditation, or having it even temporarily suspended?
In the absence of data, we can just guess. That always works.
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 a pulp novella called DR. CUBA.
