Oxebridge has obtained a list of nominees being considered to lead the rewrite team for the “early revision” of ISO 9001 for ISO’s Technical Committee 176 (TC 176). Despite ISO having rules intended to limit the influence of any one stakeholder category, 6 out of 9 nominees are private ISO 9001 consultants, with the rest being from national standards bodies. No end-user organizations are represented at all.
The nominees currently under consideration are:
Consultants:
- Lorri Hunt (USA)
- Lassaâd Gharbi (Tunisia)
- Arthea Diergaardt (Namibia)
- Devindra Chattergoon (Trinidad)
- Jose Dominguez (Mexico)
- Horacio Martirena (Argentina)
Standards Body Reps:
- Wang Lizhi (China)
- Edgar Diaz Perez (Dominican Republic)
- Isaac Sheps (Israel)
The nominee with the most recent user experience would be Isaac Sheps, who retired from Carlsberg Beer in 2016; the company held ISO 9001 during Sheps’ tenure, and still maintains that certification currently. It was likely, however, that Carlsberg was still working under the 2008 version of the standard at that time.
According to her resume, US consultant Lorri Hunt’s last practical experience with ISO 9001 was in 2006, for Honeywell. Argentine consultant Horacio Martirena last held a non-consulting position in 1990. Tunisia’s Lassaad Gharbi has not had a position unrelated to consulting or auditing since 1985.
Others on the list have no practical experience with the standard at all, other than their role on TC 176. A majority have no practical quality management experience, other than consulting.
It is expected that Hunt, Dominguez, and Chattergoon will be rewarded by ISO for their role in pushing through the revision of ISO 9001 over prior objections of the world’s ISO members. As reported here, ISO held six different vote events, from formal ballots to informal SurveyMonkey polls, to coerce ISO member nations to approve an early revision of ISO 9001. Only on the sixth attempt did ISO win a majority, after a number of nations abstained.
Hunt and Dominguez had a sizable role in the development of ISO 9001:2015, which is roundly criticized as the “worst version ever” of ISO 9001. This is attributed to TC 176’s refusal to push back against the ISO senior leadership on its demand that the standard include controversial “Annex SL” text which was not written by quality management subject matter experts.
For the 2015 version, TC 176 deviated from long-standing rules on the intended content for management system standards. Under prior conventions, such standards were to include proven methods taken from industry and subject matter experts, and which were already validated in industry. For the 2015 version, the authors invented concepts wholesale, such as risk-based thinking and organizational knowledge, and then argued the ideas would be validated by ISO 9001 users after publication. As a result, the standard no longer presents proven, validated methods, but a collection of whimsical ideas born out of closed-door meetings, with no actual evidence they work.
Hunt’s mentor, Texas consultant Jack West, was forced to write a 2022 article for ASQ criticizing ISO 9001:2015’s risk-based thinking after spending nearly 8 years defending it. That piece was co-authored by Sheps. In 2013, West and TC 176 were pressured to abandon the Annex SL approach and its approach to risk through a “Public Call” document published by Oxebridge, but refused to do so.
Prior editions of ISO 9001, such as the 2000 version, were developed when TC 176 managed the balance of stakeholder groups, and resisted the takeover by private consultants. In later years, ISO abandoned this effort, and has embraced the private consulting industry, using it as an extension of its marketing and branding efforts, in order to sell ISO standards.
ISO claims to have no role in selecting leaders for key committees, but nevertheless uses key partners like BSI and ANSI to ensure that friendly consultants achieve leadership slots, so that ISO’s overall marketing efforts can be pursued without pushback. Then, by refusing to uphold rules on leadership composition and ethical behavior, ISO allows such persons to hold power for years.
Oxebridge has argued that the dominance of consultants in TC 176 is the reason the current version of ISO 9001 is confusing, as this drives business to the TC 176 leaders’ consulting firms, in order to decipher the cryptic text.
