Maybe get things going again

So an even longer leave of absence. Some time spent out of the industry and now I am in a position to start contributing to this ISO 17024 blog once more! Some things to consider if anybody is interested:

• I don't have time to do much research but if you have a story or some information you want me to aggregate then please let me know and I will do what I can
• The Wikipedia page likely needs a bit of an overhaul - thoughts and suggestions welcome

So that is about it, nothing too crazy but this blog has seen some pretty sustained views so it makes sense to keep things going.

Returning from leave of absence

Many apologies for LONG time no blog, but the realities of working with a quickly expanding startup have meant that my initial 2 month leave of absence from the blogging scene has turned into a 9 month gap.

Am in the process of finishing up some interesting research so posts to resume through November.

17024 accreditations up by 18%

Things seem to be ramping up. Dr Roy Swift at ANSI has just announced that the number of accreditations is up by a whopping 18%

"These accreditations represent the largest one-time increase in organizations and credentials since ANSI launched its programs in 2003," confirmed Dr. Roy Swift, ANSI director of personnel certification accreditation. Just in March the organizations that obtained their accreditation are:

1. American Board of Multiple Specialties in Podiatry (scope: podiatric surgery)
Primary Care in Podiatric Medicine Podiatric Surgery Diabetic Foot Wounds and Foot Wear

2. CompTIA (scope: information technology)
CompTIA A+ CompTIA Network+ CompTIA Security+

3. InfoComm International (scope: audiovisual)
Certified Technology Specialist (CTS) Certified Technology Specialist - Installation (CTS-I)

4. Refrigerating Engineers & Technicians Association (scope: industrial refrigeration)
Certified Assistant Refrigeration Operator (CARO) Certified Industrial Refrigeration Operator (CIRO)

Go here for more information

Talking about competency at the ISO9000 conference

So have just got back from presenting at the ISO9000 conference in Orlando. What a great event. The really interesting thing was although most of the presentation titles at the event did not focus on competencies, many were referencing them in the content of the presentations, typically I saw one of 2 things over and over:

- how the hell do you know your employees are competent!
- how do auditors and quality professionals in general get a handle on competency in our profession

Most notable for me was Jack West's paper on getting serious about auditing (track 8). He did a fantastic job of talking not just about systems and processes, but making the connection between these and the correct development and measurement of competencies to ensure that systems actually work as we intend.

I was a little nervous about my presentation on "Employee Competency: Audit Non-Compliance and the Bottom Line". I thought I was going out on a limb when I challenged the audience (mostly of auditors) to confirm to me if they REALLY challenged organizations measurement of competency (clause 6.2.2 for those technically minded people). The response after the presentation was universally "no". In fact the sentiment was that if they did push too hard, likely no organization would escape that part of the audit intact. Obviously a real issue for the industry.

If anybody is interested the presentation is below:

Wikipedia updates

Just a quick post to note that I have updated the Wikipedia ISO/IEC 17024 page with basically my brief ISO17024 easy reference page.

Hopefully now it is up, people can start to expand and continue to add more references and keep the page "alive". If anybody wishes to add more information, but does not know how then pop me a mail and I will update the information for you.


The Wikipedia link is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_17024.

I do have an issue with the page address (the / between the ISO and IEC has screwed up the page location) but I will fix this over the next couple of days. This is an artifact of the original listing I found on Wikipedia.

Accreditations Against Asbestos!

It has been a while since my last post, chaos of business development causing me to take a quick break from the blogging community.

To get back into the swing of things I decided to do some research as to how ISO17024 is seen as being valued not by the credentialing community, but by industry and regulators.

I found a great piece on how small firms are taking big risks on construction sites, particularly in the rules and regulations around the control of asbestos.

Interestingly the UK Heath and Safety Executive is running a "name and shame" database with over 120 entries related to infringements, the majority of which are failures to identify asbestos relate materials prior to work starting.

Critically one of the key recommendations is that the surveyors that perform these analysis should have a credential or certificate from an ISO17024 accredited organization.

Things seems to be gaining momentum. The newswires and giving me more and more examples of 17024 accreditation, but now we seem to be seeing a real industry pull. This is what really takes a product (which is all ISO17024 really is) from the hype stage into maturity.

I will now be interested to see what ramifications this has, for example will insurance policies change because of this recomendation?

If anybody has any other examples of an industry pull regarding 17024 I would be really interested to hear from you.

Link to the article from heal-mesothelioma is here. The article is written by Mick Dawson who is a commercial director for Bureau Veritas.