A few days ago, I received a message by E-mail from a newly opened certification body. The message says that the body will not require wasteful documentation and additional jobs and do effective assessment for management innovation. It also says that its assessment activities are equal to improvement.

It sounds as if the body will do “value- added” assessments, crossing a boundary that an assessor should not be consultant. And generally an assessor has not competence for improvement (refer to” Competence necessary for added value assessments：Aug.2w,2004” in Assessment/ Consulting corner on this web-site). So it will lead to malpractice.

If the body will do “value- added” assessments, naturally wasteful documentation and additional jobs will generate. The message is contradictory.

If the body aims a new assessment market, it must say that it will do only conformance assessments, not “value- added” assessments.

If the body aims improvement, steps such as researches, generating new ideas and pushing new ways; those required for improvement activities have to be done. It costs auditees much more than assessments.