Can You Reject an Auditor?

Hello fello nerds,
My last auditor was a jerk and I don't want him to audit us again. Background: certification body is Intertek; certification is ISO 9001:2015; we make machines for pharmaceutical processing. Am I able to prevent him from coming back? Do I have any say over who my auditor is?

Robert Stanley said:

Hello fello nerds,
My last auditor was a jerk and I don't want him to audit us again. Background: certification body is Intertek; certification is ISO 9001:2015; we make machines for pharmaceutical processing. Am I able to prevent him from coming back? Do I have any say over who my auditor is?

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Good day @Robert Stanley;
If your auditor is simply writing valid nonconformities, with reference to the rule and your organization's gap to that rule, then they are simply doing their job.

If, however, the auditor is...
1- unprofessional
2- argumentative/antagonistic
3- "consulting"
4- writing unsubstantiated nonconformities (based on auditor opinion and not directly violations of a specified/noted requirement of the standard),

...then yes, your organization can and should file an objective appeal with your certification body. All certification bodies have a method established to do so.

Hope this helps.
Be well.

Robert Stanley said:

Hello fello nerds,
My last auditor was a jerk and I don't want him to audit us again. Background: certification body is Intertek; certification is ISO 9001:2015; we make machines for pharmaceutical processing. Am I able to prevent him from coming back? Do I have any say over who my auditor is?

Click to expand...

Answer is 100% YES at any time during the audit you can say "LEAVE"!!!! And then contact their customer service saying why. If the CB doesn't like your reasoning or decision tell them you want to transfer the certificate to another CB, they'll probably stop sucking eggs at that comment.

Robert Stanley said:

Hello fello nerds,
My last auditor was a jerk and I don't want him to audit us again. Background: certification body is Intertek; certification is ISO 9001:2015; we make machines for pharmaceutical processing. Am I able to prevent him from coming back? Do I have any say over who my auditor is?

Click to expand...

You have already experienced him. Usually, the CB's will have a feedback mechanism trigerred after the audit. You can express your comments here, and mention that you would not want him in your next audit cycles. When the time comes for the next audit, you can ask to find out who the auditors will be and even request their CV if you wish to look into...

Thaks for the info fellas. The guy didn't give us any findings, which is nice but he was very antagonistic. He argued with me about everything; complained about the coffee; complained about lunch. He would do these little power-plays. For example, when I pushed back about something, he would say, "let's get your boss in here and see what he thinks" and then ignore me and talk to the boss. My boss kissed his ass but he didn't need to. We hadn't done anything violating the standard. At one point he tried to play some weird mindgame with me. He asked for a diet coke so I got him one. He opens it (I clearly hear the fizz sound), takes a sip and puts it down saying, "it's flat. you got another one?" So I grab him another one. He pops the top (fizz sound), takes a sip and says, "this ones flat too" and then just stares at me in silence. He leaves them both on the table when he leaves so I go pour them out in the sink. Bubbles everywhere. I still don't get what he was trying to do with that.

Robert Stanley said:

I still don't get what he was trying to do with that.

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Believe it or not, I know for a fact that some auditors would misbehave on purpose, in the hope that the organization would ask the CB not to send them back, ever again.

The rationale for that is the fact that registrant assignment was “inconvenient” for the auditor; eg long trip, bad location, etc…. If the auditor is a full time employee and gets paid, irrespective if he is auditing or not and has some in-demand credentials, he knows he won’t be fired and he can always claim it was you, the client who was having a bad day.

Nevertheless, you absolutely have the right to request another auditor to be assigned to your future audits and the CB should welcome your feedback. Undergoing an external audit already brings a level of stress in itself. Having to deal with a jerk does not help.

Sidney Vianna said:

Believe it or not, I know for a fact that some auditors would misbehave on purpose, in the hope that the organization would ask the CB not to send them back, ever again.

The rationale for that is the fact that registrant assignment was “inconvenient” for the auditor; eg long trip, bad location, etc…. If the auditor is a full time employee and gets paid, irrespective if he is auditing or not and has some in-demand credentials, he knows he won’t be fired and he can always claim it was you, the client who was having a bad day.

Nevertheless, you absolutely have the right to request another auditor to be assigned to your future audits and the CB should welcome your feedback. Undergoing an external audit already brings a level of stress in itself. Having to deal with a jerk does not help.

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Exactly spot on. A few years ago I had a newbie assigned to me that expected to be waited on hand and foot by the client, it was pretty exasperating and I ended up taking him to the "wood shed", needless to say, he bit the dust later on and self imploded. No longer in the business.

Follow up, I've been informed by Intertek that the crazy auditor will not return.

Good deal.

Good for you!

Like doctors, mechanics, contractors, or most anything else, good auditors can be hard to find, but when I do, I try to make their visit as comfortable as possible and let their employer know they were good and I want them back.

Unfortunately I think in the audit world too many companies are afraid to complain, out of fear it would negatively affect their audit result. This makes it harder to get the bad ones weeded out.