[labnetwork] Is your facility ISO certified?

[Howard Northfield]

I was a test ISO auditor at the past Nortel (telecommunications company) during a big push for ISO 9001 certification in the late 1990s, purely to be able to market in Europe.

ISO really only demands a trail of record of internal process, it does not define process details or quality levels.

Howard


________________________________
From: labnetwork <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> on behalf of Paolini, Steven <spaolini at cns.fas.harvard.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023 4:47 PM
To: Joseph Losby <joseph.losby at ucalgary.ca>; labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: [labnetwork] Is your facility ISO certified?

Attention : courriel externe | external email
Joseph,
   ISO certification is primarily for a manufacturing facility. I don't know of any benefit a shared use facility (I'm assuming that's what you have) would gain.
Becoming ISO certified is extremely expensive and disruptive, you must also allow annual "audits" to your facility which again are very expensive and disruptive.
Iso Certification, in simple terms is just an accreditation that you do what you document and document what you do.
I remember confronting the CEO of a company that I used to work for and asking him if it made the facility any better, his answer was a firm "NO".  I then inquired as to why we do it and the answer was "Because our competition has it".
  Best of luck,
   Steve Paolini  Equipment Dood
Harvard University

________________________________
From: labnetwork <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> on behalf of Joseph Losby <joseph.losby at ucalgary.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023 12:47 PM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
Subject: [labnetwork] Is your facility ISO certified?

Hello.

Is your cleanroom facility ISO certified?  What are your reasons for having or not having ISO certification?  Are there any particular changes you have had to make to your facility to adhere to standards?

The costs appear to be substantial, and we are still deciding whether or not we should go this route.

Cheers and thanks for your replies,
Joe


Joseph Losby, PhD.
Operations Manager, qLab
Quantum City, University of Calgary
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