by Dennis Arter
A few months ago, I responded to a discussion comment on Linked-In. The author was a 3rd-party (registration) auditor. He was wondering why the auditee was not enthusiastic in addressing the problems raised during his certification audit. Here is what I said:
To properly understand, we must look at the bigger picture. You are asking for change in response to a SYSTEM that is not designed for change.
Audits done by the registration agencies (called third-party audits) are done for the purpose of conformity assessment. They are similar to field visits from the government regulators. Is the auditee CONFORMING to a certain underlying standard or regulation? It does not matter how good or poorly they conform; rather, "did they meet the requirements?" That's why the registrars use the term nonconformity, which was invented for the Conformity Assessment system. Granted, some of the accredited registration agencies classify nonconformities as "major" (you did not pass and will not receive a certificate) or "minor" (you passed, but barely). But fundamentally, third-party audits (actually conformity assessments) were never designed for improvement. Go or no-go.
Now, this conformity assessment model has many benefits to society. It helps in supplier selection.
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