Oxebridge has filed a five-page complaint against Smithers Quality Assessments Inc. for colluding with PJA Inc. in the marketing of ISO 9001 and SN9001 services, thereby violating accreditation rules.
PJA is operated by John Allin, and does business under the name John Allin Consulting. Mr. Allin recently announced his consulting firm was offering ISO 9001 and SN9001 consulting services. While Mr. Allin is known as a snow industry expert, there is no evidence to date that he has ISO 9001 consulting experience, and promotional materials generated by his consulting firm appear to confuse basic concepts, such as certification and accreditation.
Smithers has participated in multiple promotional activities with John Allin’s group. On June 10-12, Smithers’ Director of Operations Gretchen Merriman attended an “ISO Training Event” presented alongside John Allin, and promoted by Allin’s Snowfighters Institute, which is owned by his firm, PJA.
Ms. Merriman previously appeared on two Allin-published blog podcasts, once in February 2013 and again in October 2013.
These events and other promotions were the co-promoted on various Allin-owned websites, as well as on the Smithers blog.
At no time has Smithers or Allin invited any other consultants or certification bodies to participate in its marketing events or promotions.
ISO 17021 prohibits an accredited certification body, such as Smithers, from marketing its services alongside any single consulting firm. The Oxebridge complaint alleges that the Smithers/Allin arrangement violates at least eight separate clauses of ISO 17021, most dealing with ensuring that Smithers maintains a firewall between its activities and those of consultants, in order to ensure objectivity and impartiality.
A copy of the full complaint may be downloaded here. (PDF – 319K)
A previous complaint was filed by Oxebridge against Smithers in December 2010, after it was discovered they were publishing implementation advice documents from John Sedlak Consulting, a firm operated by a former Smithers senior executive. Smithers removed the documents and the matter did not need to be escalated. Ironically the resolution was reported by Oxebridge by Ms. Merriman, who said at the time, “11/12/10-Corrective Action: All literature will be reviewed by SQA management prior to posting or distributing.” In the new complaint, Oxebridge alleges that Smithers corrective action process is ineffective.
Pay to Play?
Particularly disconcerting is a blurb featured on the Snowfighters Institute website, which indicates that Allin’s group may have awarded a $2,495 “endowment” to a potential client, to pay for event registration fees. If the money was given for the June event, this would constitute a serious breach: Allin’s group would have effectively used a cash incentive to get people to attend an event co-hosted by Smithers, introducing a direct and serious “financial threat to impartiality” as defined by ISO 17021.
Source: http://www.snowmagazineonline.com/snow-040414-snowfighters-institute-bione.aspx
Escalation, Other Related Filing Likely
It is not clear how Smithers will be able to take corrective action on the problem, since the events have already occurred, and because Smithers appears to have invested so much reputational capital on SN9001. Oxebridge expects to have to escalate the complaint to ANAB, but because of ANAB’s involvement with both Smithers and ASCA — the snow industry organization co-founded by John Allin — it is also unclear how ANAB will be able to enforce the rules with impartiality, given it’s own investments in SN9001. A final escalation to the International Accreditation Forum is therefore likely.
Oxebridge has been reporting on the SN9001 scandals for many months, but this “represents the first clear violation of accreditation rules in the SN9001 scheme,” says Oxebridge VP Christopher Paris. “But I suspect it won’t be the last. ASCA itself is on very thin ice here, pardon the pun.”
Oxebridge is also investigating the ANAB-Smithers-ASCA activities for possible insurance fraud. “The various players have alleged that ISO 9001 will reduce insurance premiums, and that has historically not been the case. Now an ASCA member insurance provider is claiming they have cracked the code. If they are in fact able to reduce insurance premiums due to ISO or SN9001, then it’s no harm no foul. If not, well, it’s not something anyone wants to think about.”
At the same time, Oxebridge is investigating how ANSI accredited ASCA as an American national standards developer for its related snow and ice industry standards. Documents obtained from ASCA appear to reveal that the organization “rigged” the voting canvass team in order to get the standards approved by ANSI, by stuffing the team with supportive voices from a single stakeholder group, despite ANSI rules to ensure a proper demographic spread. Specifically, it appears that critical voices from within the snow and ice management industry, as well as the standards development community, were intentionally left out.
Oxebridge routinely files complaints against certification and accreditation bodies, as well as other industry actors, on behalf of standards users, in order to uphold the legitimacy and value of accredited certificates. Currently, Oxebridge has two complaints filed with UKAS — one against LRQA and another against BSI — as well as a complaint before the New York State Attorney General against the unaccredited risk management training organization G31000 for deceptive marketing and antitrust violations.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 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 the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
