{"id":4120,"date":"2014-09-05T11:51:57","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T16:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/?p=4120"},"modified":"2014-09-05T12:07:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T17:07:21","slug":"why-the-few-bad-apples-myth-is-hurting-iso-9001-certification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/why-the-few-bad-apples-myth-is-hurting-iso-9001-certification\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the “Few Bad Apples” Myth is Hurting ISO 9001 Certification"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"badapple\"When it comes to poor audits, and bad auditors, the old trope “a few bad apples” always comes up. The problem is that the phrase is presented as a fact, when it’s just an opinion, and devoid of any actual data. It minimizes the problem of poor certification auditing\/auditors and dooms us to a future without any incentive to fix it.<\/p>\n

In the past five years, I have collated data on all the audits my clients have gone through, from their various accredited registrars. Of that data, 99% had problems when comparing actual audit experiences and records against the accreditation rules of ISO 17021 and auditing rules ISO 19011.<\/p>\n

The most prevalent problems, in (rough) order of magnitude:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. auditors performing on-site consulting during audits,<\/li>\n
  2. auditors failing to cite evidence in nonconformities,<\/li>\n
  3. auditors assessing against their assumptions, and not actual requirements,<\/li>\n
  4. failure to supply an audit schedule ahead of the audit,<\/li>\n
  5. misrepresentation of the auditor’s role (i.e., claiming he has the power to grant or deny certification),<\/li>\n
  6. opening and\/or closing meeting did not include all required topics,<\/li>\n
  7. nonconformities not discussed prior to closing meeting (when it’s too late to challenge them),<\/li>\n
  8. auditor did not conduct full audit days per the contract (e.g., left early to catch plane),<\/li>\n
  9. auditor had not read documentation ahead of Stage 2, despite having allegedly conducted a doc review during Stage 1,<\/li>\n
  10. auditor was not properly knowledgeable on the client’s industry.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The data intentionally left out another nefarious complaint, that auditors engage in racist, sexist or otherwise workplace-unfriendly talk during the audit. This was reported enough times to be a problem, and is very severe in its implications, but the actual incidents were low in numbers. Still, it’s worth mentioning. The number one inappropriate comment overheard? Auditors hate having a Black president. <\/em>This was even uttered during an audit of a company\u00a0that had a (wait for it) Black president<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    Factor in that auditors only receive 36 hours of training before being labeled “expert” and you see the problem is not necessarily with the PEOPLE (the auditors themselves) but rather the grossly inadequate training they are given. Add to this the over-exaggerated claims of expertise made by the CB sales people (“our auditors are highly trained and experts in their fields!”) and you create the perfect storm for inevitable dashed expectations.<\/p>\n

    It’s NOT a few bad apples. The system that produces auditors is hopelessly inadequate, attracting only those who join the profession as a source of supplemental income (typically after retirement) or who have failed in another aspect of industry. Obviously if these auditors were management experts, they would be managing a business, not doing contract auditing.<\/p>\n

    Worsening matters is the “tin badge cop” mentality of the CB home offices, which — once you sign their contract — act as if you owe them favors for billing you every year for those inadequate audits. Have a complaint? Good luck getting that processed, assuming they don’t blacklist you or sue you. All of them insist their auditors are well trained, but none actually require their auditors to undergo training beyond the dopey 36 hour class.<\/p>\n

    Until we address the systemic flaws in auditor training and vetting, the problem will only worsen. It’s not a few bad apples, the entire orchard is sick.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When it comes to poor audits, and bad auditors, the old trope “a few bad apples” always comes up. The problem is that the phrase is presented as a fact, when it’s just an opinion, and devoid of any actual data. It minimizes the problem of poor certification auditing\/auditors and dooms us to a future without any incentive to fix it.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4121,"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":[156,23,52,252,14,22],"class_list":["post-4120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-auditing","tag-certification-bodies","tag-iso-17021","tag-iso-19011","tag-iso-9001","tag-registrars","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4120","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=4120"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4124,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4120\/revisions\/4124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}