United Resource Management, a waste management firm out of New South Wales, was inspected by local police after an accident with one of their trucks killed a 58-year old grandmother. Police found that the overwhelming majority of the URM vehicles examined were in violation of safety regulations. Despite this, URM holds certifications to ISO 9001 and AS4810 — a safety standard — by the accredited registrar SAI Global.
NWS police found 23 trucks of the 25 inspected to have “defects including faulty lights, oil and hydraulic leaks and poor maintenance.” Two of the trucks were taken out of service entirely. Additionally, 25 trucks were found with defective speed governors.
On February 8th, a URM truck was operating in reverse when it ran over the grandmother, who was pushing her grandson in a baby carriage a the time. Miraculously, the baby was not injured, but the woman was killed.
The SAI certificates were signed by the company’s General Manager and Chief Risk Officer, Nicole Grantham. Grantham’s signature appears on a growing number of problematic certificates issued by SAI Global, including a Pratt Whitney AS9100 certificate that was issued both before and after the company was found by the US Dept. of Defense to be noncompliant to AS9100, and to a Chinese company that was found to have falsified critical aerospace component production records.
SAI published a series of videos on risk management featuring Grantham on its YouTube channel.
SAI was recently temporarily de-accredited by the Accreditation Body ANAB due, allegedly, to insufficient auditing resources which led to an audit backlog. Several Oxebridge clients currently face losing their ISO 9001 or AS9100 certifications because SAI does not have enough auditors to perform upgrade audits in time for the September 2018 mandatory deadlines. A representative of SAI told Oxebridge that despite the ANAB suspension, it could still issue ISO 9001 certs under its JAS-ANZ accreditation. The URM certificates featured JAS-ANZ accreditation. SAI has given conflicting explanations as to the reason for the suspension.
A representative with URM refused to provide Oxebridge with a copy of any of their certificates, saying that they are reserved for “potential and existing clients.” Oxebridge then obtained the certificates through the SAI public registry. The URM representative later denied that the company was being secretive.
Ms. Grantham has not responded to multiple requests to clarify her role as risk officer and the issuance of the problematic SAI certificates.
Accredited registrars have insisted that despite the language appearing on official ISO 9001 certificates, the certification is not meant to be an assurance of product or service quality.
[UPDATE 19 Feb: This article previously indicated SAI had not responded to requests to confirm URM’s certification. They have since done so, and the article was updated accordingly.]