last few spaces available for the ISO 9001 Lead Auditor course in Redditch available.
To book your space contact IMS on 01376 500068 or email info {at} imsworld(.)org
Jun 072011
The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is the Sole Appointed National Accreditation Body within the United Kingdom.
On the 9th July 2008 the EU Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted the EU Regulation 765/08 on Accreditation and Market Surveillance.
With effect from the 1st January 2010, the EU Regulation established a legal framework for the provision of accreditation services across Europe. The Department for Business Innovation & Skills appointed the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) as the UK’s NAB.
UKAS are signatories to the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), the European Co-operation on Accreditation (EA) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Co-operation (ILAC).
If you are responsible for ensuring your business is certified make sure the certification body you select is accredited by UKAS. UKAS Accreditation provides assurance in the market as UKAS accredited certification bodies operate to recognised standards. The accreditation process provides consumers with the confidence that the quality of the service they procure is of a consistently high standard.
Choosing a UKAS Accredited Certification and/or Inspection Body adds a number of benefits to your business which include:
- de-risk your procurement by taking the guesswork out of choosing a certification body and by giving you the confidence that you will get the service that best fulfils your requirements;
- win new business particularly since the use of accredited services is increasingly a stipulation of specifiers, most notably in the public sector;
- facilitate access to international markets since UKAS accredited certificates are recognised throughout the world;
- help you to identify best practice since your certification body is required to have appropriate knowledge of your business sector;
- control costs with the help of knowledge transfer since accredited certification bodies can be a good source of impartial advice;
- offer market differentiation and leadership by showing to others credible evidence of good practice;
- demonstrate due diligence in the event of legal action;
- reduce paperwork and increase efficiency by reducing the necessity to re-audit your business
IMS International LLP are accredited by UKAS (Certification Body number 078) for ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004, AS9100 Rev B, AS9120 and ISO 9001:2008 TickIT.
Reliance Technical Service Ltd are accredited by UKAS (Inspection Body number 0430) for ISO 17020 inspections. Reliance are also a Notified Body (NB 2141) for the Safety of Toys for Europe.
Dongguan Testing Laboratory are accredted by CNAS (Testing Laboratory Number 3783) for the testing of toys to EN71 for the Safety of Toys.
For further information on the IMS group and the services we provide, visit our main website www.imsworld.org
The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) is giving users the opportunity to feedback on the use of the international Quality Management Standard; ISO 9001 and help shape future revisions.
ISO’s technical committee 176, subcommittee 2, completed its amendment to ISO 9001 in 2008 and its revision to ISO 9004 in 2009. Now it’s considering whether these revisions and related standards in the ISO 9000 family should be revised and what such revisions should consist of.
ISO requests that anyone who uses or will use ISO 9000 standards complete its ‘ISO 9000 User Survey’ and contributes their opinions on how the standards can be improved. The survey takes around 30 minutes to complete and will be open until January 2011.
Although the survey will take 30 minutes it will give you the chance to voice your opinions and concerns for future revisions of ISO 9001. Many organisations feel that some areas could be more clearly defined or improved so now is the chance to hopefully bring those to light with the people who produce the standards.
The below information is taken from the BBC website:
A Paris court has said Continental Airlines was “criminally responsible” for the crash of a Concorde supersonic jet 10 years ago, and fined it 200,000 euros (£170,000).
It has also been ordered to pay 1m euros to the jet’s operator Air France.
A Continental mechanic, John Taylor, was given a 15-month suspended prison sentence over the crash.
Continental has said it will appeal, saying the verdict is “absurd” and “only protects French interests”.
Another airline operative, Stanley Ford, and three French officials were cleared.
The Concorde caught fire shortly after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in July 2000, killing 113 people.
The court ruled that the crash was caused by a piece of metal left on the runway after falling from a Continental jet. Investigators said this caused a tyre-burst in the Concorde, which in turn ruptured a fuel tank.
The judge in the case confirmed investigators’ findings that titanium debris dropped by a Continental DC-10 onto the runway at Charles de Gaulle airport before the Concorde took off was to blame.
Mr Taylor should not have used titanium parts to make repairs on the DC-10 because the metal was known to be too dangerous for aeroplane tyres, and he should have used a softer metal, aluminium, instead, the court found.
Continental had disputed this interpretation, saying the airliner, operated by Air France, was already in flames before it hit the small piece of titanium.
“While we agree with the court’s decision that Stanley Ford was innocent of the charges he faced and we share his relief that his decade-long nightmare is over, we strongly disagree with the court’s verdict regarding Continental Airlines and John Taylor and will of course appeal this absurd finding,” a UK-based Continental spokesman said in a statement.
“Portraying the metal strip as the cause of the accident, and Continental and one of its employees as the sole guilty parties, shows the determination of the French authorities to shift attention and blame away from Air France, which was government-owned at the time and operated and maintained the aircraft, as well as from the French authorities responsible for the Concorde’s airworthiness and safety.”
Compensation
Financial claims were not the trial’s focus, but apportioning blame was, says the BBC’s Christian Fraser in Paris.
However, the court ruled that Continental should pay 70% of any compensation claims to the families of victims. Aerospace group EADS was asked to pay the remaining 30%.
Following Monday’s verdict, Air France, which paid out 100m euros in compensation, may decide to seek to reclaim some of that money from Continental.
There is a separate court case taking place over economic compensation for the crash.
Most of the passengers were German tourists heading to New York to join a luxury cruise to the Caribbean. Nine French crew members and four hotel workers also died.
Nov 242010
The latest date for the ISO 9001:2008 IRCA Registered Lead Auditor Course has been set for the 7th-11th February 2011. The course teaches you everything you need to know in order to attain your lead auditor status but will also provide you with the knowledge required to perform internal or supplier audits.
The course location has yet to be established but we will update you of this when it has been agreed.
If you would like to book a placement on the course or would like any further information please do not hesitate to contact IMS.
IMS International in Partnership with CMC International have spaces available for the next ISO 9001:2008 IRCA Lead Auditor Course to be held the week commencing 8th November 2010 at the Dunton Hills Golf Course in Brentwood, Essex. The price of the course is £600 plus VAT and lasts for 5 days, all course literature is provided within the cost and lunch is provided.
The course is IRCA Registered and will allow all successful attendees to become approved Lead Auditors and perform internal audits or third party external audits.
If you are interested in attending the course please contact the IMS office on 013676 500068 or send an email to info {at} imsworld(.)org.
Not everyone is 100% clear on the certification process from initial application to the certificate being issued so we have developed this simple flowchart to detail this. It also highlights what the auditor will be looking at during each of the stages (stage 1 and stage 2).
The same process will be followed should a currently certified client wish to add another site or standard such as ISO 14001 when they already have ISO 9001 in place.
If you require any specific or further information please do not hesitate to contact us.
ISO Certification Audit Process and what the Auditor will review during the stage 1 and stage 2 audit
The scope of certification is often overlooked by clients and it is very important that the scope reflects your activities. The scope of certification needs to be unambiguous and consistent with your activities.
The scope of certification and audit is shown on the audit plans which is submitted a few weeks prior to the audit taking place, clients need to review this scope and ensure that no changes are required. Unplanned scope changes cannot be amended during the audit and any changes need to be formally submitted to IMS prior to any activity.
A review is required of the requested changes to ensure that the current assigned auditor is competent to perform the audit against the amended scope, and that enough time has been allowed to complete the audit including the changes required.
If your current scope of certification is the “Refurbishment of Private Dwellings” and you now expand into “Demolition of Properties” then this area will need to be audited in order to bring it into your scope. This process needs to be planned into the forthcoming audit and consideration needs to be taken for the auditor competence, no auditor will be allowed to arrive on the day of the audit and change the scope.
There will not generally be an issue bringing new activities into your scope and in most cases additional audit time will not be required. However, auditors are not authorised to make that decision during the audit, therefore it is very important that you let the head office know prior to the audit that you wish to make a change to the scope.
Please ensure that when you receive the audit plans these are reviewed for content and times and the scope remains accurate. Contact the head office as soon as possible to request a scope change, this must be received in writing.
If you have any questions regarding the above then please do not hesitate to contact us.
May 152010
More and more organisations are beginning to introduce ISO 14001:2004 (Environmental Management Systems) into their business and are never quite sure if they should integrate the requirements with their already existing ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System. In our experience this is a suitable option for most organisations and is relatively easy to carry out.
Due to a number of the clauses being almost identical but essentially following the same process it makes sense to combine these procedures to streamline the system and make it more manageable for users.
For example, both standards require control of Non-conformance’s, Corrective Actions and Preventive Actions and although the standards are different the process for controlling these will be the same. You can have a non-conformance against a product or process requirement within ISO 9001 but then a non-conformance against an environmental incident such as a spillage in ISO 14001. Although the non-conformance is different, the process for identifying the root cause and introducing correction and corrective actions will be the same. In both cases you need to establish how the non-conformance occurred and how you are going to correct the root cause to ensure that the same issue does not reoccur.
The management review can follow the same process. Both standards require you to perform a management review, they may have different input and output requirements but there is no need to hold tow meetings as the process of going through the inputs and reviewing data will be the same. As long as your system captures the requirements of both standards auditors will be happy for you to combine the review process.
Internal Audits is another process that can be integrated fairly easily. Again, the process of performing the audits will be the same, you will just be looking at different specific areas at various points. You will however notice that the auditor will only need to audit some of the processes once; ensuring that the requirements of both standards are covered (training etc).
There are a number of consultants who are experienced with both standards and the process of integrating these. A list of possible consultants can be found on the IMS main website but others are available.
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