You are carrying out an audit to ISO 9001 at an organisation which offers consultancy services on the implementation of ISO 9001 quality management systems to manufacturers of cosmetics.
You are interviewing the Technical and Quality Director (TQD), who manages a team of biochemists responsible for providing ISO 9001 consultancy services to customers.
You: “How do you ensure your team’s competence concerning regulatory and ISO 9001 requirements?”
TQD: “We subcontract a part-time lead consultant who has years of experience working as a biochemist in the cosmetics industry. She is responsible for ensuring the team’s competency.”
You: “Do they retain any documented information on the individual competency of each consultant?”
TQD: “No. The lead consultant is a dedicated individual with lots of contacts in the sector. We rely on her decision on the consultants’ competency. She says that she thought that it was not necessary to keep documented information; however, after the event two weeks ago, which could not be solved due to the lack of documentation, she may consider in the future to plan which information we may need to keep.”
You: “How does the organisation enable the consultants you employ to maintain updated their competence on ISO 9001 and regulatory requirements?”
TQD: “As I said before, we leave that up to the lead consultant. She tells us when we need to employ more young consultants and when changes are introduced in the applicable regulations. Our regular survey shows that customers are quite satisfied with our consultants; last year’s objective of customer satisfaction was achieved. We gave a salary increase to consultants when they knew that the objectives had been achieved.”
You decide to raise a non-conformity.
To complete the non-conformity report, click on the blank section you want to complete so it is highlighted in red and then click on the applicable text from the options below. Alternatively, drag and drop the options to the appropriate blank section.
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