The assessor made the recommendations (not nonconformity) at the assessment of Company A that it was better for the company to make documented procedures for clear criteria of evaluation for a new supplier.

The company has actually been doing evaluation by checks sheet which contain five items (including quality and delivery) to be evaluated. Checking the sheets the purchasing director of the company, finally he has registered suppliers’ list. This doing is considered as clear criteria for evaluation of suppliers.

The company explained the above doings with actual documents, but the assessor did not accept the explanations.
Therefore at the actual assessment the recommendation became nonconformity. It is nonsense!
ISO9001: 2000 does not require “documented procedure” for Purchasing of 7.4 Clause.

To avoid such a fruitless assessment I suggest my clients to make some explanations in Quality manual as follows (shown block letters).

7.4.1 Outline of procedures for purchasing processes
In order to ensure that purchased products conform to specified purchase requirements and control over outsourced processes, we control purchasing process as described in following table.