1. An assessor is not a business partner
Company NT with about three hundred employees had received the preliminary assessment by Certification body L. At the opening meeting the assessor said he wanted to behave as if he were a business partner. I said to the management representative of the company that an assessor should stand at customer side to ensure objectivity and impartiality of the assessment. The assessor's attitude will generate unfruitful recommendations at assessment scenes.

2. Request for recording of measured value as inspection records
The company records name of an inspector who accepted inspected products as evidence of conformity with the acceptance criteria. But the assessor insisted on adding measured value to the records. As supporting evidence he quoted a) of 1.1 General in ISO9001: 2000. It explains needs to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide product that meets customer and applicable regulatory requirements. To satisfy the requirement he said the measured value records were essential.

The values are actually of no use, but as the management representative, who was descended from a big company with heavy documentation had not clear concept that a system that had wasteful records was no valuable, he could not insist his concept effectively. He still had some sense, learned in the big company, that the heavier documentation was, the better the system was.

Therefore he could not quote at once the sentences in 0.1 General of ISO9001: 2000 saying " the design and implementation of an organization's quality management system is influenced by varying needs, particular objectives, the products provided, the processes employed and the size and structure of the organization".

3.Meaningless discussion
The assessor left a report that said in the assessment he discussed with the management representative on various clauses in ISO9001: 2000.
Seeing the report, I said to the management representative that an assessment was not a scene of discussions. An assessor should determine objectively the extent to which assessment criteria were fulfilled.