Interesting Discussion Is the IAF drinking in the last chance saloon? - Update June 2022

Sidney Vianna said:

<snip>What about the millions of Swiss francs ISO has been able to pocket because of the certification schemes associated with some of their standards? <snip>

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Please explain - is it an large income in absolute terms or large income relative to the other players in the "industry"?


My context is the following heirarchy:

ISO - develops & publishes standards

IAF - provides guidance for Accreditation Bodies (ABs)

ABs - Accredit Certification Bodies (CBs)

CBs - Audit and certify organizations to ISO 9001

Training providers and consultants - help prepare organizations for certification

Certified organizations - follow ISO 9001 requirements



My impression is that the principal sources of income in the whole ISO 9001 certification "industry" are:

1. ISO (directly and through royalties) - sale of standards,

2. IAF - not sure where/how they get money - please advise,

3. ABs - income generated by accreditation of CBs for ISO 9001 and other schemes (e.g. (broken link removed)),

4. CBs - certification of organizations (and other sources, e.g. training, 2nd party audits),

5. Training providers and consultants - income derived from sale of services and information

6. Certified organizations - N/A within the "industry" [of course, their income otherwise is from customers (anywhere & everywhere)]


I am of the (perhaps uneducated) opinion that the groups with the largest relative income would be Training providers and consultants, and CBs.

Also - how does ISO get income from "the certification schemes associated with some of their standards"?

I thought (broken link removed) meant they do not get revenue from certification schemes:

The auditing and certification of management systems is carried out independently of ISO by more than 750 certification bodies active around the world. ISO has no authority to control their activities. The ISO 9001:2000 (and ISO 9001:2008) and ISO 14001:2004 certificates issued by certification bodies are issued under their own responsibility and not under ISO's name.

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(ISO's emphasis)

I look forward to hearing more about this.

Since you have connections with a NSB, try to find out how many copies of ISO 9001 were sold, versus, e.g., ISO 9004, ISO 10002, ISO 10007, etc....

Since 1987, ISO's revenue has multiplied severalfold. The primary reason? ISO 9001. Why do people buy so many copies of ISO 9001? Because there is a certification scheme associated with it.

I hate to repeat myself, but ISO 9001 has been trivialized so it could be delivered in mass quantities. When you commoditize a product, any sane mind would expect the caliber of the services associated with a commodity to go downhill fast.

The rumours that Paul mentioned in the original post are nothing new. ISO, for a decade now has been expressing concern over ISO 9001 certification being misapplied. But, in reality, other than applying pressure on the IAF, there is very little they can do.

Let's remember that the Standards that apply to AB's, CB's and auditors, respectively, ISO 17011, 17021 and 19011 are also ISO Standards...Does that mean that compliance to ISO Standards don't guarantee outcomes?

ISO could enhance CASCO as an alternative to IAF, but if the trivialization of the standards is not halted, very little will change.

While I agree that copies of the ISO 9001 standard far outsell any other (info from the NSB), I think perhaps my 2 questions got lost in the clutter of my last post.

The questions I have are:

1. Are you suggesting that ISO has a large income in absolute terms or large income relative to the other players involved with the ISO 9001 standard?

2. How does ISO get income from "the certification schemes associated with some of their standards"?

JaneB said:

I imagine you meant 'how well they take care of their customers?' and not take off their customers?

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Jane,

Thank you so much for pointing this out!

Stijloor.

All this is exactly why IATF remained the only "AB" for ISO/TS
I have heard that the aeronautical industry is thinking of going the same way.
Most people do not know that there are AB's

qualitymanager said:

1. Are you suggesting that ISO has a large income in absolute terms or large income relative to the other players involved with the ISO 9001 standard?

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I don't know what is ISO's annual revenues. It should be publicly available. I know that they have recently moved to another (nicer) HQ. A top 3 CB makes US$300M+/year.

qualitymanager said:

2. How does ISO get income from "the certification schemes associated with some of their standards"?

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By selling standards that people need to buy because they want to be certified to.

Howard Atkins said:

I have heard that the aeronautical industry is thinking of going the same way.

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The IAQG supported ICOP Scheme has been in place for several years now.

Despite The Aerospace ICOP Scheme my information was based on a conversation with an OEM auditor who claimed his and other OEM's were not happy and would prefer to go the the TS route.
I have no knowledge of the situation from the CB side.

Paul Simpson said:

If ISO took over the 'approval' of CBs world wide there would probably (IMHO) be less confusion even than exists now.

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Then soon ISO would be doing the actual audits. I think ISO needs to concentrate more on developing the actual standards by making them "stricter" and not leaving possibilites for companies to be ISO certified and consistently not delivering goods/services that are up to par.

Serious organizations also need to select their suppliers better. If supplier A is not delivering what you want, move to supplier B. Time will take care of supplier A... either he shapes up or goes out of business.

I agree that ISO needs to crack down hard on the AB/CB scheme in orderWhat they should do is and cobrar the AB / CB´s.

Sidney Vianna said:

I don't know what is ISO's annual revenues. It should be publicly available. I know that they have recently moved to another (nicer) HQ. A top 3 CB makes US$300M+/year. <snip>

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(broken link removed) (Dec 2008 data):

FINANCING
120 million CHF per year is the estimated cost for the operation of committee secretariats financed by
39 member bodies holding these secretariats

33 million CHF represents the operational cost of the ISO Central Secretariat financed
60% through membership fees
40% through sales of publications and other income from services

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At current exchange rates (1 CHF = 0.851132 USD):

120 million CHF = 102 million USD
33 million CHF= 28 million USD

So I would say in a relative sense the income of ISO (one entity) is significantly lower than the CBs (as a group).

And, in my experience, consulting and training fees (i.e., other organization-provided resources like staff and computers) leading up to certification are generally more than the equivalent of 3 years fees to a CB, for organizations of under 200 employees.

Sidney Vianna said:

I hate to repeat myself, but ISO 9001 has been trivialized so it could be delivered in mass quantities. When you commoditize a product, any sane mind would expect the caliber of the services associated with a commodity to go downhill fast.

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Sorry, Sidney. Do you mean that 9001 has been trivialized or that 9001 certification has been trivialized. My answer will be a lot different!

Sidney Vianna said:

The rumours that Paul mentioned in the original post are nothing new. ISO, for a decade now has been expressing concern over ISO 9001 certification being misapplied. But, in reality, other than applying pressure on the IAF, there is very little they can do.

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The 'unhappy' rumours have been around for a while. The only difference I am hearing is the '...and we are going to do something about it if you don't' part. As mentioned no detail yet of the options being considered.

Sidney Vianna said:

Let's remember that the Standards that apply to AB's, CB's and auditors, respectively, ISO 17011, 17021 and 19011 are also ISO Standards...Does that mean that compliance to ISO Standards don't guarantee outcomes?

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AS for 9001 they can never guarantee but they should be good indicators. IMHO they are more flawed than other management systems standards - but then again I have bitter experience!

Sidney Vianna said:

ISO could enhance CASCO as an alternative to IAF, but if the trivialization of the standards is not halted, very little will change.

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Again CASCO is a standards development committee - in ISO's current structure there is no vehicle for taking an active role in accreditation.

Not that that couldn't change.

tedschmitt said:

Then soon ISO would be doing the actual audits. I think ISO needs to concentrate more on developing the actual standards by making them "stricter" and not leaving possibilites for companies to be ISO certified and consistently not delivering goods/services that are up to par.

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As above at present ISO 'can't' audit. But to the main point of making standards 'stricter' the problem isn't the standards but their application. I have been in print on many occasions saying that ISO / IEC 17021 is a 'badly written standard developed on the basis of mutual distrust' and my views haven't changed. Whether you audit a CB to 17021, the predecessor 'Guides', ISO 9001 (remind me again why we needed a whole new standard instead of an ISO 9001 variant like TS, AS, TL etc.) or any other management system standard the assessment and accreditation will only work if you have competent auditors looking at what the CB does.

tedschmitt said:

Serious organizations also need to select their suppliers better. If supplier A is not delivering what you want, move to supplier B. Time will take care of supplier A... either he shapes up or goes out of business.

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Or use the compalint system with the CB, the AB, the IAF and ISO.