ISO9001:2015 (Clause 8.4) Control of externally provided processes, products and services: CASE STUDY

News reported by The Straits Times (25 Sep 2018):

'Fake' marble plaques used for 8,600 niches in Mount Vernon Columbarium relocation exercise’

SINGAPORE - Some next-of-kin promised marble plaques for new niches as part of the Mount Vernon Columbarium relocation exercise realised a similar looking material was used instead. The Straits Times (ST) checked with the National Environment Agency (NEA) and learnt on Monday (Sept 24) that quartz was used for 8,600 niches when they were relocated to government columbaria at Mandai and Choa Chu Kang.

In the above example, the most applicable clause(s) applicable is Clause 8.4.

Here are the requirements:

Clause 8.4.1 General
The organization shall ensure that externally provided processes, products and services conform to requirements.

Clause 8.4.2 Type of extent of control 

The organization shall:

(d) determine the verification, or other activities, necessary to ensure that externally provided processes, products and services meet requirements.

From an ISO Auditor’s perspective, these lapses need to be probed further to determine the root cause(s) to this problem including the criteria used for the evaluation and selection of external providers and the verification processes that products/services provided meet stipulated requirements. In this case, the organization is a regulator offering public services, the ‘real’ root cause(s) might not be published to avoid embarrassment.

Last status check conducted on 10 Oct 2018, the organization is certified to ISO 9001:2008 which has already been expired in Sep2018, 3 years after the issue of ISO9001:2015.

To apply the above obsoleted standard, the same discrepancies would have been marked under:

Clause 7.4.1 Purchasing process

Clause 7.4.3 Verification of purchased product