Careers advice? Becoming an ISO9001 consultant/auditor?

[CardinalFang]

Afternoon all,

I'd really appreciate some advice on a career change I'm considering. My long term options are limited, in terms of both earnings & managment responsibility: I'm currently working for a small family firm & the bottom line is that I'm not the son & heir. Having spent 20+ years in sales & management for a range of small, medium & large organisations, I'm thinking of doing something completely different & it seemed like the ISO 9001 consultants/auditors we used have an interesting job, working in a variety of locations and industry/firm types.

Does anyone on here do this as a job? How did you start? Did you take courses and exams, then join a consultancy firm, or the other way round? Do you think it's an in-demand service or growth industry? I know the daily rate we were charged, but what would be the earnings potential? Or are you self employed?

I'd be very interested in hearing anyone's experience, whether good or bad & am grateful for any advice on where to start looking or companies to speak to.

Many thanks

[anothernameitist]

You'll need to get all your quals to be in the role you want.

I was a quality auditir when ISO9001 replaced BS5750, so quite a while ago.

My only advice would be to broaden your scope, environmental standards and the rest rather tha n ISO 9001.

Depends what you want pay wise and work life balance. Look at the BSI website for vacancies and what you need to enter employment.

[vanordinaire]

One of my mates did this back in the days when it was BS5750. He did a course on it at our local tech college then got a 6 month supervised placement with a company to achieve accreditation. He was offered a full time job at that company, didn't take it but consulted for two others after that and was offered a permanent post at both. He took the job offered by the third company (quality mananger) and has now been there for the past 20 odd years. Apparently it is/was very common for quality consultants to be offered full time posts.

[CardinalFang]

anothernameitist said:

My only advice would be to broaden your scope, environmental standards and the rest rather tha n ISO 9001

Good info thanks, but, just to check I have it right....get myself qualified & then offer my services to consultancies who could farm me out? ( as opposed to contacting consultancies now, unqualified, to pitch myself as a trainee consultant in e.g. environmental standards).

Are these roles freelance, booked by a consultancy/agency with a revenue split, or would I more likely be an employee? Again, thanks. Much appreciated.

[CardinalFang]

Vanordinaire, thanks for the response.

[anothernameitist]

CardinalFang said:

anothernameitist said:

My only advice would be to broaden your scope, environmental standards and the rest rather tha n ISO 9001

Good info thanks, but, just to check I have it right....get myself qualified & then offer my services to consultancies who could farm me out? ( as opposed to contacting consultancies now, unqualified, to pitch myself as a trainee consultant in e.g. environmental standards).

Are these roles freelance, booked by a consultancy/agency with a revenue split, or would I more likely be an employee? Again, thanks. Much appreciated.

The roles can be covered by all of the above, I'm out of this field now, but when I was doing it you could take any route. Looking at things now adays all the work is probably sown up by long established companies, so that might be your best route to get in, get known then move onto the self employed route.

[CardinalFang]

anothernameitist. Thanks for the follow up. :thumbs up:

[mike9009]

I am a Quality Manager for an aerospace business (~50 people). We have recently achieved AS9100C and with the latest change to ISO9001 I would see some training demands for AS9100D / 2016 in the near future.

Personally I would not recruit a consultant for one of the quality accreditations (or ISO14001/ OHSAS 18001) as these management systems need to be owned by the management team, not have an alien system thrust upon the business. The business needs to own the system.

I started a year ago in my current role and they had a consultant who was implementing a quality system from a larger organisation (with 90+ KPIs) The system was completely unworkable. He left after two weeks of me starting.

From my perspective, training consultants are of far greater benefit to me (and probably larger organisations) than dedicated consultants. AS9100D/ 2016 looks like it will generate much needed training within the aerospace industry - it seems to be going the way of TS16949 with PPAP/ MSA/ APQP/ 8D all mentioned in the training course I have recently signed up for. My background is in the automotive sector so it should fall well for me in my new aerospace role.

Also, if I was looking to hire a consultant I would want to see many years practical experience rather than classroom training.

An auditors role for BSI/ Lloyds would be an interesting role. The examinations/ testing can be quite stressful (from what I have gained) as your livelihood depends on passing them. The role can be quite tricky to maintain standards but also keep your clients happy (I have seen some auditors walk away from NCs whilst others raised major NCs where none should have been raised. I have also audited some of our suppliers and really wonder how they ever achieved ISO9001. Giving the accreditation away completely devalues what it stands for. BSI seem to have a larger and larger population of sub contractors - which seems to be a fruitful route to go for an individual (I don't know the exact details just talking to various auditors).

Sorry for the random ramblings, but hopefully some help from my 'limited' experience. If you would like to know any specifics let me know.


Mike

[CardinalFang]

mike9009 said:

Personally I would not recruit a consultant for one of the quality accreditations (or ISO14001/ OHSAS 18001) as these management systems need to be owned by the management team, not have an alien system thrust upon the business. The business needs to own the system.

Understood - ours is a very small company (6 staff), so we decided to bring in an outside consultant to help us start from scratch & also with the annual (bi-annual?) review/progress updates. This was the interesting part for me - his role in coaching/advising/reviewing for similar SME's. (I now have his contact details & will be picking his brains too)

mike9009 said:

Also, if I was looking to hire a consultant I would want to see many years practical experience rather than classroom training.

Point taken - I don't know what business background this guy had as a "lead auditor", (according to his business card), but will find out when I speak to him.

mike9009 said:

An auditors role for BSI/ Lloyds would be an interesting role. The examinations/ testing can be quite stressful (from what I have gained) as your livelihood depends on passing them.

Can you expand on this? I realise BSI are the standards Institute & have their own consultants/contractors, but Lloyds? Insurance? banking? What did you mean? Sorry if I'm being thick...

Exams are an interesting subject. I've seen plenty of "3 day course, 2 hr exam" options, which sound fine, but I had to do the FSA exam a few years ago, having not studied since Uni, 18 years previous. The job depended on it. Terrifying at the time & the thought of having to go through that again isn't pleasant, right now. Passed though, but I'm pretty sure when I heard, I was the only candidate sneaking off to the side of the trading floor failing to hold back tears of relief...

thanks again Mike - good info - much appreciated

[mike9009]

CardinalFang said:

mike9009 said:

Personally I would not recruit a consultant for one of the quality accreditations (or ISO14001/ OHSAS 18001) as these management systems need to be owned by the management team, not have an alien system thrust upon the business. The business needs to own the system.

Understood - ours is a very small company (6 staff), so we decided to bring in an outside consultant to help us start from scratch & also with the annual (bi-annual?) review/progress updates. This was the interesting part for me - his role in coaching/advising/reviewing for similar SME's. (I now have his contact details & will be picking his brains too).

Again, I have a slightly cynical view of this, based upon my experiences. I have audited small firms that have used consultants and it has felt like a box ticking exercise rather than a firm commitment to improve or comply. Not saying your consultant did not instil a good continual culture.

CardinalFang said:

mike9009 said:

Also, if I was looking to hire a consultant I would want to see many years practical experience rather than classroom training.

Point taken - I don't know what business background this guy had as a "lead auditor", (according to his business card), but will find out when I speak to him.

mike9009 said:

An auditors role for BSI/ Lloyds would be an interesting role. The examinations/ testing can be quite stressful (from what I have gained) as your livelihood depends on passing them.

Can you expand on this? I realise BSI are the standards Institute & have their own consultants/contractors, but Lloyds? Insurance? banking? What did you mean? Sorry if I'm being thick...

Exams are an interesting subject. I've seen plenty of "3 day course, 2 hr exam" options, which sound fine, but I had to do the FSA exam a few years ago, having not studied since Uni, 18 years previous. The job depended on it. Terrifying at the time & the thought of having to go through that again isn't pleasant, right now. Passed though, but I'm pretty sure when I heard, I was the only candidate sneaking off to the side of the trading floor failing to hold back tears of relief...

thanks again Mike - good info - much appreciated

Sorry, I was not clear. There are many companies which can certify other companies to various QMS (Quality Management Systems) such as ISO9001, AS9100 etc. Lloyds (www.lrqa.co.uk) are another version of BSI. The UKs certification body (UKAS) then check BSI, Lloyds etc to make sure standards are maintained. If you fail the UKAS exams or surveillance audits from UKAS then you are no longer qualified to audit for BSI/ Lloyds etc. There are also companies that consult and then issue certificates to ISO9001 but are not accredited to UKAS, companies such as this are generally poor in my experience (no name and shame here though!!)

I 'fell' into Quality Management having been an Engineering Manager in a company where the QM was promoted. A slight conflict of interests performing both roles! I find it quite challenging and interesting, but generally the other aspects of the role rather than the ISO9001/ TS16949/ AS9100 aspects. It really is amazing the lack of knowledge in the industry, especially among my customer base which have all been 'big' name multi-nationals in automotive and aerospace sectors.

I have a 'good' background in statistics which personally I find interesting, it is of potential use in industry and can confuse others in QM or quality auditing roles

HTH

Mike

[CardinalFang]

Mike,

I take your point about outside consultants - the buy vs build dilemma must apply in this field too.

Thanks for the info about certification bodies. I'm only a couple of days into looking at this, finding plenty of unknown unknowns, so this is good guidance.