{"id":1374,"date":"2013-03-11T21:40:37","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T01:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/?p=1374"},"modified":"2013-03-11T21:40:37","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T01:40:37","slug":"anab-was-right-and-i-was-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/anab-was-right-and-i-was-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"ANAB Was Right… and I Was Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I am not above eating crow, but generally do so only under two conditions: when I am proven wrong, and have to face up to it, or when I am really, really hungry and those crows are mocking me, so they deserve it, the bastards.<\/p>\n

In this case, it’s the former. I recently got into a heated telephone conversation with two representatives of ANAB —\u00a0Business Development Specialist Kevin Dennis, and Director of Sales and Marketing Roger Muse — over SN900<\/a>1, the snow and ice management industry’s take on ISO 9001. I was making the point that SN9001 represents a dilution of the value and validity of ISO 9001, as it puts us on the “ice cream shop” path towards a “flavor of the month” model of ISO 9001. I indignantly quoted (as I often do) the ISO TC 176 mandate to “reduce the\u00a0<\/span>proliferation\u00a0of sector specific standards,” because ISO intended that 9001 apply to all industries. When I first wrote about SN9001, I called it “industry self-cannibalization<\/a>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Robocop\"<\/a>

BA9000 Spokesperson<\/p><\/div>\n

Well, the ISO 9001 world is still feasting on its own feet, but I made a pretty big error when arguing with ANAB. Mr. Muse mentioned that Sn9001 was no different from “Kevlar\u00a0standards,” and I went ballistic (pardon the pun) reminding him that Kevlar standards are product<\/em> certifications, and SN9001 is a QMS<\/em> standard. Mr. Muse said that I needed to “get more\u00a0training\u00a0on standards” which is like telling a bear he needs sharper teeth, so the rest of the conversation just declined from there. If they ever make a film version of the phone call, it will feature a guy named Leatherface<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s the thing: he’s right.<\/strong> <\/em>Whereas I was stuck in the mental loop of thinking he was referring to\u00a0Kevlar\u00a0product<\/em> standards, typically used in textile industries and having to do with tensile strengths and all sorts of geeky tech nonsense, Mr. Muse was actually talking about something called BA9000<\/a> — a body armor QMS certification for which ANAB offers accreditation.<\/p>\n

But the thing is, I never heard of BA9000. In my defense, apparently no one else has either, since ANAB doesn’t actually list any BA9000 accredited registrars*, but still Mr. Muse and I were not talking apples and oranges. He really was talking about yet another sector-specific variant to ISO 9001!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Mmm, this crow is great. Please pass the\u00a0Gewurztraminer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Invasion<\/a>

“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next!”<\/p><\/div>\n

Now this leaves me in a doubly-troubling position. First, I have to admit I was wrong. That’s manageable. But worse, I have to admit that the invasion of the ISO-snatchers is far, far more advanced than I thought. There are so many sector variants of ISO 9001, I can’t even keep up, and I do this for a living!<\/em><\/p>\n

But let’s not sully up a good apology with excuses. I’m not a politician, after all.<\/p>\n

So, Mr. Dennis and Mr. Muse, I apologize. You were right to compare SN9001 to BA9000, and I should have known what you were talking about instead of assuming you were stretching facts to support ANAB.<\/p>\n

There’s a Buddhist proverb that says if we see an object in the road, thinking it’s a snake, before we freak out we should probably first check to make sure it’s not just a stick, \u00a0so we don’t waste a lot of calories. Or something like that.<\/p>\n

—-<\/p>\n

\u00a0(* Perry Johnson Registrars has an out of date page on BA9000<\/a>, but it’s not actually clear if they offer the service. They are not listed as accredited for BA9000 by ANAB.)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am not above eating crow, but generally do so only under two conditions: when I am proven wrong, and have to face up to it, or when I am really, really hungry and those crows are mocking me, so they deserve it, the bastards. In this case, it’s the former. I recently got into […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50,114],"class_list":["post-1374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-anab","tag-sn9001-ba9000","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1374"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1396,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions\/1396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}