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CB Reducing Audit Durations

Discussion in 'Registrars (Certification Bodies) & Registration' started by ISOAuditor, Oct 27, 2021.

  1. ISOAuditor

    ISOAuditor New Member

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    Hey, if you guys are looking to reduce your audit durations, check out American Center for Sustainable Certifications (ACSC). They were able to reduce my audit duration by 30%. Apparently most Registrars base their audit durations on total employee count but they base theirs on the effectiveness of each employee under a management system and offer some great discounts. Their auditor was also very reasonable when conducting their audit.
     
  2. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    Are you affiliated with this CB in any way?

    An IAF-member accredited Certification Body has to follow the IAF Mandatory Document MD-5 which defines the rules for allocating durations to audits for ISO 9001, ISO 14001 (but not IATF 16949 for example). This document is publicly available for people reading this post to check the validity of any comments made. It can be found here: https://iaf.nu/en/iaf-documents/?cat_id=7 ALL Accredited Certification Bodies are required to follow this so the comment about the "effectiveness of each employee sounds like a sales "spin", IMHO. It's headcount and scope based, pure and simple.

    Reductions of 30% as claimed in the OP are possible, but ONLY when there's justification as described in the texts of MD-5. It's very rare and, if a CB offers reduced duration audits and the Accreditation Body determines this is in violation of the MD-5 tables, the client will - at the their cost - have to go through additional audits. Reductions of 20% or so, are allowed when considering the scope and if product design is applicable.

    BTW - ACSC should provide reasonable auditors. It's their job.