ISO Audit: Complete

"Snuze: Needs another Swede" (markg)
08/18/2015 at 14:01 • Filed to: None

Does anyone else have to deal with annual ISO audits in their workplace? More specifically, does anyone in non-manufacturing fields have to deal with ISO audits? Ugh.

At least it’s over, and the auditor was pretty easy on me. Especially because I’m working on a product currently that the customer outright rejected... because we didn’t incorporate their internal revisions they generated and didn’t tell us about.

DISCUSSION (16)

Sn210 > Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/18/2015 at 14:05

I haven’t participated in an audit, but we’re all about ISO 13485

Verdog ~ manual Bro, Bro - HellHawk Equipped > Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/18/2015 at 14:24

I’m in a life and safety field and we participate in 9001, 13001 and OSHAS 18001.

Tapas > Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/18/2015 at 14:36

Yep. But I’m in manufacturing. So ISO stuff is something we deal with all the time.

I audit people for it. We get audited for it. Its almost a substitute for the F word.

Audit me?! Well Audit you too , you son of a who...welder!

Snuze: Needs another Swede > Tapas
08/18/2015 at 14:43

That’s hilarious.

I don’t really understand ISO in the officer. I always thought it was about manufacturing standards. I guess they needed a way to expand and make more money, I dunno.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > Sn210
08/18/2015 at 14:46

I work for a marine engineering/naval architecture firm and we are 9001. We have to get audited yearly to keep our certification, and it’s required for a lot of the contracts we bid. I just think it’s silly because I always thought ISO was all about manufacturing techniques. All we do here with it is fill out forms saying we reviewed the products we send to customers. Which is something we would do anyways, but now it’s more formal, I guess?

Snuze: Needs another Swede > Verdog ~ manual Bro, Bro - HellHawk Equipped
08/18/2015 at 14:46

Marine engineering and naval architecture here, we are 9001.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/18/2015 at 14:52

I’m up in September, yearly thing for me, I’m in Advertising.

The Powershift in Steve's '12 Ford Focus killed it's TCM (under warranty!) > Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/18/2015 at 14:54

I work in fire protection. We don’t do any manufacturing in house, but do carry inventory and have a fire test lab, so the company has regular audits. I’m one of the internal auditors, but have yet to be audited myself.

The last company I worked for was avionics. They were AS9100, amongst other things, and were frequently audited by ISO, FAA-FSDO, and EASA, along with SQAs from Lockheed, Boeing, and a few other smaller customers. Handling auditors was basically a full time job for one of the quality engineers, and I don’t know how to he didn’t shoot himself while dealing with all of their hassling.

Tapas > Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/18/2015 at 14:56

Its a Quality Management System that is meant to govern manufacturing and safety. But then they realized that manufacturing and design/sales/office processes go hand-in-hand so they made different ISO specs for different types of businesses.

With audits, its all about the kind of auditor you get and his/her personality.

People who just audit for a living can be difficult, because they like to have that power or they have an ego about how things should be and now have a job to enforce their opinion/interpretation.

I get to be on both sides of an audit, so I try not to be a douche.

The Powershift in Steve's '12 Ford Focus killed it's TCM (under warranty!) > Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/18/2015 at 15:02

ISO is typically associated with manufacturing and quality control, but most of it’s standards are really about process control and operational consistency. Medical care, software development, finance, etc can benefit from well defined procedures, documentation standards, and consistent operational standards which are tenants of ISO 9001 and others.

Now, being ISO certified doesn’t mean that a company is competently run or offers high quality products/services - it just means that the company has procedures in place that are part of a larger controlled quality system. Those procedures may be sh*t, and may be barely followed, but by providing evidence and documentation that they are in place and being used, a company can maintain certification.

Sn210 > Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/18/2015 at 15:09

I'm in the medical device field, so we have ISO, FDA, Anvisa in Brazil, JPAL for Japan... And then we audit ourselves on top of it all!

Snuze: Needs another Swede > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
08/18/2015 at 16:12

WAT?

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/18/2015 at 16:17

If we’re not ISO certified we’ll lose our clients.

I’m in charge of the department that tracks all assets in the company. Pictures, Video, Files of all kinds.

If I don’t follow proper procedures to keep track of them and archive them they will drop us for not managing their files correctly.

And that’s just my part of the audit. We actually just did our “pre-audit trial run” last week, they’re here in September for the real deal.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
08/18/2015 at 16:18

I get it. I just... I don’t know.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/18/2015 at 16:20

It’s a pain in the ass but we do Automotive advertising, those disclaimers can kick us in the ass awfully hard.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
08/18/2015 at 16:26

Yeah, I can understand that