I do not believe that ISO certification proves a company has a good quality system. It does prove that the company follows their procedures, as prescribed by ISO, but not that the system is setup correctly. I personally know of a shop that has a corrupted quality system but passes ISO audits. They just wrote their system in a manor that any quality manager would reject. They pass ISO but fail to produce what one would expect a QC/QA system to achieve. I hear that the ISO auditors roll their eyes and pass them because they cannot be faulted for failing to follow the tenants prescribed by ISO. It is quite disturbing. -----Original Message----- From: d. terstegge [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 7:59 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Board Shop Audit About the general (non-technical) quality audit: would it not be sufficient to rely on ISO certificates ? Would the average quality engineer or purchaser do a better job than a specialized ISO9002 auditor ? And isn't a part of the advantage of the ISO-qualification system that there's no need for further quality audits ? Or am I too optimistic about all this ? Daan Terstegge Thales Communications Unclassified mail Personal Website: http://www.smtinfo.net >>> [log in to unmask] 04/02/03 06:39pm >>> There is a difference between a technical audit and a quality audit. In a technical audit, the auditor has to determine if the candidate supplier can perform to the customer's technical requirements, e.g., assess their capabilities. In a quality audit, the auditor looks to whether the candidate supplier produces to an acceptable quality level, has process control, documentation control, calibration control, etc. Frequently these audits are combined, or performed in parallel by different customer representatives. One must also look to see if the candidate supplier has a stable business, has capacity to take on the customer's work, etc. Supplier selection is a complicated issue and my perception is that a lot of organizations don't give it the attention it deserves. Blair Hogg QA Manager GAI-Tronics Corporation ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses. www.hubbell.com - Hubbell Incorporated ********************************************************************** --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 -----------------------------------------------------