Oops, forgot another question. Also during the audit I was told that EVERY gage needs an R&R initially, then after that they can be grouped into families then only one from the family needs to have an R&R each year. This is contradictory to what I was previously told, that I could just do one for the family period. I looked in the core manuals (QS9000, MSA, etc.) and could not find where they reference specifically how often and how many gages need to have an R&R. The only thing I found in the QS9000 manual under MSA section, it uses the word 'type' , which leads me to believe that is indeed one per family. It is going to be quite a bit of work if I have to R&R every gage we have.
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qdigest 5/10/2001
In selecting a registrar, all three questions are excellent and should be answered before making any sort of decision. So, let's work in reverse order and see what you need to be considering:
1. Who qualifies registrars and how?
Not all registrars are qualified and those that are not qualified and are not seeking accreditation should be avoided if your organization wants some level of assurance. Many countries around the world have bodies that "accredit" registrars as being competent to register an organization to quality management system standards and requirements or environmental management system standards. In the United States, the accreditation body for both QMS and EMS registrars is the US National Accredition Program (NAP), which is jointly run by the Registrar Accreditation Board (RAB) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), with the RAB serving as administrator of the NAP programs. Accreditation involves verification activities regarding the quality system of a registrar, the competence of its auditors and "witnessed audits" of a registrar's auditors conducting a registration assessment. Based on these activities by the NAP or any other accreditation body, the body will determine whether the registrar has proper procedures in place and is competent to conduct an audit against ISO 9001/2 or ISO 14001 (and some bodies also qualify accredited registrars to conduct audits against QS-9000, AS9100 or TL 9000).
2. How can an organization know if a registrar is competent?
Registrars that your organization is considering should provide you with documentation during the bidding process that indicates which accreditation bodies have accredited them. Many registrars, particularly if they conduct registration assessments in more than one country, will be accredited by more than one body. If a registrar does not present proof of accreditation, check the web site of the accreditation body(s) you consider important to your organization or your customers or contact the accreditation body. For instance, RAB maintains a web site where it lists all registrars that have been NAP-accredited to conduct various types of registrations. In addition, I believe InsideQuality's site has information about registrars. The accreditation body that a registrar is accredited by may be especially important if your organization does business with customer in other countries, where one type of accreditation is more important than another (for instance, NAP accreditation is widely recognized and accepted in most countries).
3. Finally, is there information available about the quality of registrars?
The answer is yes and no. There is no organization that rates the quality of registrars the way Consumer Reports rates the quality of cars and other products--accreditation bodies simply verify that a registrar is competent. However, for the past two years, Quality Digest has conducted an Annual Registrar Customer Satisfaction Survey, with the third survey expected in July 2001. The survey is conducted by sending a survey to all registered organizations, with respondents indicating their registrars to allow data to be analyzed by registrar. It is a good tool to use in choosing a registrar, although any organization should consider several factors, including the industry it is in and where it is located.