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Discussion in 'ISO 9001:2015 - Quality Management Systems' started by John C. Abnet, Dec 1, 2018.

  1. John C. Abnet

    John C. Abnet Well-Known Member

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    Good day all;
    This topic has been touched on before, but I don't believe yet fully addressed.

    Here is the scenario...
    A French company has 3 manufacturing areas in the US and 1 distribution center in Mexico.

    They are wanting to have all north american locations registered to ISO 9001 (they currently have no registration).

    The question: Can all locations be treated as their "North American" operations and have a single cert issued?

    (I am hoping specifically that a current or previous registrar can weigh-in and reference the actual rule that allows or disallows this).

    Thanks in advance
     
  2. Qualmx

    Qualmx Well-Known Member

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    It could be a zone, but different countries, It depends of the cb, good question.
     
  3. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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  4. John C. Abnet

    John C. Abnet Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for the feedback @Andy Nichols and @Qualmx .
    Any idea how that internal and 3rd party audit process would work? Have you seen such situations work well? Poorly?
    Thank you.
     
  5. Miner

    Miner Moderator Staff Member

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    My company has worked under this type of arrangement for over 12 years. All of our North American facilities and distribution centers are under one certificate, while our European and AsiaPacific facilities are under local certificates. Under the common certificate, each facility handles their own internal audits, while a small central function audits those portions dealing with interfaces between facilities and corporate areas. The 3rd party audits rotate through all of the facilities on an annual basis. When an issue is found by the 3rd party at one facility, all facilities must respond by auditing the issue and either affirming that the issue was not found, or by acknowledging the same issue and providing corrective action. Obviously this has worked well for us to have maintained it this long. It is also less confusing to our NA customers who may not know in which facility their product was manufactured.
     
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  6. John C. Abnet

    John C. Abnet Well-Known Member

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    This is an extremely informative and helpful response @Miner . Thank you for this information.

    Be well.
     
  7. John C. Abnet

    John C. Abnet Well-Known Member

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    Good day @Miner ;
    Based on your answer am I to understand that the 3rd party does a surveillance audit at each of the facilities each year? I assume then, that the 3rd party also does a recert audit at each facility on each 3rd year of the rotation.

    So, if you have five facilities, there would be a total of five 3rd party surveillance audits every year and on the "3rd" year, there would be five recertification audits.

    Is my understanding correct?

    Thank you?
     
  8. Miner

    Miner Moderator Staff Member

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    @John C. Abnet That is correct. Also, if they find a concern at one facility, they will closely scrutinize the next 2-3 facilities for the same potential issue.
     
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  9. Neo113016

    Neo113016 Member

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    YES. Specify it in your SCOPE.