Quality Digest

Registrars are required to follow certain guidelines for scheduling as set by the RAB, however it sounds to me like you’re being overcharged.

I have several clients with multiple sites and none of them have ALL sites audited with each surveillance. Their satellites are audited on a rotational basis. One registrar has even offered to audit the satellite site electronically from the home site.

I would recommend you take this up with your registrar.

Hope this helps.

IQ

I agree with impactquality's comments, but it is difficult to offer you an accurate response without knowing the following:
1. How large are the manufacturing, corporate and service sites in terms of operations and personnel? The length and frequency of surveillance audits should be calibrated to provide effective assessment of an organization's operations, so the size and complexity of the processes should impact on the frequency and length of surveillance audits. QS-9000 provides a table of audit day minimums that are tied to the number of employees an organization has, rather than the number of facilities. In fact, QS-9000 has a provision that permits the minimum number of audit days to be reduced to 50-70% depending on how many facilities an organization has. If your manufacturing operation is less than 100 and each service facilities is less than 50, I'd have to think you are being overcharged. If the manufacturing operation is more than 1,000 employees and the service facilities are more than 100, then you are getting a bargain.
2. Did your organization request the surveillance audits to be conducted every 9 months instead of the more customary 6 months or 1 year? If not, you may want to see if the registrar could conduct the surveillance audits every 6 months BUT audit the service site on a rotating basis so that there are actually fewer audit days per facility but more effective auditing. Ask the staff member at each service site who accompanies the auditor(s) if the auditor(s) actually spent a full 8 hours conducting the surveillance audit. If the auditor(s) only spent 4-6 hours actually working, you should demand the registrar cut back the frequency of audits or only charge you for the actual auditing hours employed.
3. Did you shop around your registration and pick the best package or did you look for the least expensive registrar on paper? As with everything else, the phrase "let the buyer beware" is important in registrations. The cynical side of me says, "Hmm, some registrar sold them on the idea that the auditors would only come in once every 9 months instead of every 6 and then turned around and made part of the deal the fact that the company would be charged for a full-day audit at each facility every 9 months."

Depending on your answers to these three questions, it may very well be that what seems like a burden is a great deal or a terrible ripoff. If your service sites are small, you need to look for a new registrar that can provide surveillance audits that would rotate among the service sites over a year or more. If your facilities are all very large and have complex processes that require regular surveillance--especially if there have been regular significant nonconformances--you have a fair or good deal.

However, as always, if you think your registrar is not providing a good deal, the first step is to contact the registrar and indicate that you are not happy with the service arrangement you have and that if some arrangement can't be made to reduce the burden and costs to a suitable level, you will find another registrar that can provide effective audits of all your facilities without having to visit each one every time.