Tag Archives: BSI

UKAS always doubted the “confidence” it sells

BSI sells ISO standards like ISO 17025 and 15189, designed to be vague enough to sell to vast numbers of the gullible. UKAS fills in the blanks, gratis, with documents like LAB 1.  These give the specifics in considerable detail. UKAS’s … Continue reading

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British Ad Watchdog Agency Contradicts Own Rulings to Defend BSI

In 1997 the Advertising Standards Authority Ltd. (ASA) ruled against the BSI for making advertising claims it couldn’t support, chiefly about the cost-effectiveness of the ISO 9000 standard. BSI have continued to print porkies about it ever since. The Oxebridge blog has reported … Continue reading

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>90% say accreditation delivers benefits…but…

Authors employed by bodies including the US Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) have written that >90% of public health departments the PHAB accredits report benefits that might have been expected. This sounds a lot like ISO accreditation although the details of the … Continue reading

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The Men Who Made Us Thin

Jacques Peretti made a fascinating series of TV programmes to follow The Men Who Made Us Fat. The Men Who Made Us Thin shows how the various elements of the weight loss industry have failed to make much impact on … Continue reading

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ChemistryDaily’s summary of ISO 9000 criticisms

The article cited below has vanished from its original URL but may be read at The Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20070712001002/http://www.chemistrydaily.com/chemistry/ISO_9000 ChemistryDaily summarises criticisms of ISO 9000 thus: Criticisms of ISO 9000 Criticisms of ISO 9000 generally concern inappropriate misapplication or extension … Continue reading

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Down the memory hole: The Case of the Vanishing Adjudication

The Buildfreedom.com website cited below has vanished, just like the vanishing ASA adjudication against the BSI that it reported.  Fortunately, the reference can still be found with The Wayback Machine. http://web.archive.org/web/20140713190437/http://buildfreedom.com/content/reciprocality/r1/example.html Buildfreedom.com tells a curious tale in which the BSI’s … Continue reading

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How Britain lost the global quality war and the world got ISO 9000

The following article reminds readers of industrial relations and manufacturing quality in the 1970s. “Industry analysis at the time revealed that on virtually every measure of performance, Japanese car makers were at least twice as good as their UK equivalents, … Continue reading

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The Webbs on the standardisation movement

Here’s what the Webbs had to say about how the standards movement fitted into their plans for A constitution for the socialist commonwealth of Great Britain (1920). It renders people “nominally free” but “virtually compelled” – praised as “expert control” without “democratic control”. … Continue reading

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Nature or nurture?

ISO accreditation is not simply the product of committees.  Rear-Admiral Derek “Spike” Spickernell (RN) was the father of the BSI and ISO quality standards.  Other naval and military leaders also laid the groundwork in defence standards designed to ensure the … Continue reading

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It’s happening again

In an open letter to Stevan Breeze, chief executive of the British Standards Institute, John Seddon drew attention to ISO 9000:2000 transitioning as “the biggest rubber stamping exercise in history“: “…Coercion maintains growth. If it were value-in-use that maintained growth would … Continue reading

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