Registrar Recommendations

Welcome!

JonArrowhead, you don't say where in the World you are located, which may affect the choices you have. When you say "Registrars", that's the organization you contract with to provide the Certification service. Due to a number of factors, many Registrars are forced into using contractors and, experience shows, many of those contractors work for a number of Registrars. Changing Registrars may not give you any options to have a different auditor!

You describe the variation in auditor performance. You have control over this, in many respects. If there's one or two people you can get along with, tell your CB you want them assigned to your audits. You don't have to accept anyone the Registrar sends. If they don't want to do that or offer an excuse why it can't be done (trust me it CAN be done) then try to discover, from the auditor who else they work for and do your due-diligence on things like assignment of a specific auditor, when you get a quote from a different Registrar. Also be sure to check on fees and other small print, too.

Sadly, it seems to me - from experience of the past 5 years of working with clients through the various upgrades the standards (ISO9001, AS9100 and IATF16949) went through, the type of auditor variation you describe is "normal" - I don't mean acceptable, of course. Registrars don't want to spend the money to ensure minimal variation. Added to that, the availability of auditors has long been an issue for Registrars who have a lot of "gray hair" in their ranks and no-one wants to make that career move to become an auditor (even without a pandemic). It's not a glamourous job and doesn't pay very well.