How I Learned About Quality Management Standards: The Case of Registrar Error By: Dave Taylor As I was driving to a (hopefully) new customer, my Palm Pilot reminded me that I was going to check with Kam at Roundtech about registration. We had our registration audit at Roundtech five weeks ago, and they were recommended for ISO 9001 registration (by a nationally recognized auditor) and I was concerned if they had received official notification. So I called him. "Have you heard from [XXXX] yet?" I asked when he answered. Kam replied quizzically, "No I haven't, should I?" "It's been over a month, you should have heard something by now." Kam said he'd check and get back to me. Two days later he called with a startling revelation. "The registrar says RAB wouldn't accept the recommendation!" "How come?" I replied in disbelief. I'd never had a company recommended by a registrar's lead auditor denied registration. "Wrong SIC code." "Wrong SIC code? Didn't they use the SIC code you sent them?" I asked, becoming more incredulous by the second. "No! They sent what they thought was the equivalent. It turns out they were wrong. They want to do the audit over from scratch." I couldn't believe my ears — what a monumental mistake! I couldn't think what to say to Kam. Finally, I blurted out my standard phrase when confronted with such lack of service, "Ask them how Roundtech is to be compensated for their error." Kam was infinitely more professional about this than I would have been. He agreed they would sit for another audit, the second at the registrar's expense. Because of the disruption and delay (they missed announcing their registration at an important trade show) I would have made the case for at least a partial refund on the first audit as well. As it was, he said to his credit, "Maybe the second audit will help us find more holes in our system and lead to additional improvements." The man is a saint! It's hard to draw a lesson from this. The organization being audited is usually at the mercy of whomever the registrar sends. However, since then I always check the credentials of the auditor sent. Is there a lead auditor on the team? It's a good idea to ask for a resume, their RAB accreditation and other relevant credentials. You must make sure their credentials represent them and that their accreditations haven't expired. AND you must know if they are operating in your SIC code. Dave Taylor President Kolimat, Inc. About the Author Dave Taylor is president of Kolimat, a company established in 1993 and dedicated to assisting small businesses to improve their quality and reduce their costs through improved manufacturing and quality systems. Dave is a Certified Quality Auditor, Certified Quality Engineer, and a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt. With over 25 years of manufacturing management experience, Dave successfully led companies' quality systems registration efforts (both ISO 9001 and QS-9000) and has developed basic quality systems. Dave recently spent 8 months consulting with a manufacturer on six sigma problem-solving projects. Comment on this article