I agree with all that's been said on the ISO front. The 'old' ISO certification was hyped by those with a vested interest in seeing the process succeed - i.e. the ISO organisation. If it hadn't pursuaded people of the value of ISO 9000 certificates, ISO would have had to disappear up its own tail end for having effectively failed to design a quality product itself - to wit, a good-quality procedure for evaluating quality procedures. My own experience echoes that of others. ISO certification does (or did) not produce a level playing field where a minimum quality level was assured. I believe that this was the expectation in the mind of Joe Public - that anyone going to an ISO Certified Company to buy something from it could reasonably expect that that Company's ISO Certified Quality processes and procedures would result in the client/customer getting what he asked for. I once bought similar custom semi-rigid coax cable assemblies from 3 different companies. The cables were all to be made to the same (BS) specs; they were just different lengths with different connectors on the ends. The variability of the quality returned was a real eye opener - cables from one company were beautifully made and performed exactly as expected and required. With another, connectors came off, strands of shielding poked out the sides of the connectors, pins were recessed, the lengths and angles were wrong - you name it. The other thought was, of course, that British Standards were so loose in their specification that all the cables we received did meet it - that the problem was not necessarily from the ISO Certification. I know that this was the case when my last Comapny bought Hypertac connectors, and some new purchasing officer, out to show he could get the right stuff at the cheapest price but technically naive, bought Souriau connectors to mate with them. Hypertac produce a Rolls Royce quality product with nice, round, well toleranced contacts of great appearance and reliability. Souriau produced connectors with square contacts made out of bent tin that had tolerances you could drive the coalition forces to Bagdad through. These "mating contacts" had as much believable relationship as Arnie Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito did as Twins, yet they were to the same spec. We complained to BS. In a way ISO certification did more harm than good - it lent credibility to those who didn't deserve it with no obligation on anyone to improve. Some (bad) Companies saw the ISO Certification as their chance to gain entry to the same exclusive club as the already genuinely good Companies were members of through shear hard work and committment to quality. It didn't take long for the truth to be realised, though, and ISO have thus had to do some product improvement themselves. I hope that the new Certification process gives us all a greater level of confidence than the old one did. I'm still disappointed that there are no classifications to the Certification - passing grades, if you like - as that would give the buying public a better basis for comparison, but then who's to judge?. My 2 cents worth this Friday in Singapore, so as you can see, words are cheap. Peter "d. terstegge" <[log in to unmask]> 03/04/2003 08:58 PM Sent by: TechNet <[log in to unmask]> Please respond to "TechNet E-Mail Forum."; Please respond to "d. terstegge" To: [log in to unmask] cc: (bcc: DUNCAN Peter/Asst Prin Engr/ST Aero/ST Group) 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. 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