Fuck: Better get to bed, I suppose. It’ll be boring enough without sleep deprivation. I’m the Management Rep BTW. Yippee!
All the best for – er – whatever it is you do. 
May you get an auditor like my last one. Dude was real, real good at his job and at the same time an actual gasp human being!
Best way to handle this sort of thing: about 5 minutes into the meeting, point vaguely towards the back of the room and exclaim “On my! What’s that?!?”. When everyone turns to see what you’re pointing at, flee.
You’re reviewing all the standards for Quality Management Systems?
Bugger that for a game of soldiers.
Hope it all goes well today.
Three lifetimes ago I pushed our company through our initial ISO9000 audit and then through two later review audits. It was a pain in the neck, and an immense amount of work, tons of paperwork, and took up practically all of my time for months. But it worked.
The last time they showed up, it was without warning. They’d changed the date of the audit, but hadn’t seen fit to tell me about this. It’s times like that that you have to improvise and act official.
One secret to retaining your sanity – keep the paperwork to a minimum – enough to satisfy the requirements and enable you to find (or prove) what you need to, but no more. If you make people fill out one form they’ll do it. If they have to fill out three, they’ll ignore them and hope you won’t notice.
Off topic a bit, but I’ve seen a lot on ISO in company literature and whatnot. I read a bit on it in wiki, but still don’t understand something. Is this a Business To Business (Does one business make sure the other is ISO certified) thing or does it effect normal customer purchases?
My background is in manufacturing, the last company I was a consultant at made parts for pacemakers. They HAD to be ISO certified to sell to the big companys that made the finished product.
The theory is common standards of quality and tracibility. It started in the automotive business. Now I don’t know any business in medical or aviation manufacturing that isn’t ISO.
I had a ball as an auditor. I got to see how things were done all over the plant, not just the area I worked in. Plus we had one manager that was a total lazy asshole slob. It was fun to put the screws to him at any chance.
Ask the auditing team one question : “Where did YOU get your ISO-9000 certification from”?
(It is rumored that there is an ISO-recognized entity that adits ISO auditing organizations. Who they are is a mystery.
Or tell them: our auditors are our customers!
Yeah, THAT’LL put them in a good mood for the audit!
There are only a few, very well-known auditing companies. They’re certified, but (IIRC), it’s not ISO-9000. After all, they’re not producing a product that’s subject to ISO9000 discipline. ISO-9000 (actually 9001 and 9002) is geared toward production of large quantities of hands-on products. It was hard enough shoehorning our company’s meager (but expensive and high-tech) products into the ISO-900 model.
I like to point out the window and say “Hey look! Elvis!!”. Then hide under the table till they all leave.
Seriously, I have been in manufacturing of high tech equipment for almost a decade and an ISO audit is never fun. Cross your fingers for a good auditor and bring some Advil with you in the morning.
Ok. Now I understand your actions during Mafia 1. 
Tired OP here.
- ISO9000 is not geared toward manufacturing only.
- ISO9002 was discontinued with the new 2000 version. There is only ISO9001 now. If you don’t design, you can exclude it. If you do design, it must be part of the scope.
- ISO is not a quality standard; it’s a business standard. If you work in a sucessful company that’s not certified, chances are you’re doing much of what’s required anyway. Do you have control of documents and procedures? Do you have a formal method of resolving issues? Do you plan projects? Do you plan resources? Do you review performance and provide training? Do you look at company performance metrics and make business decisions based on trends, or perceived trends? Yes? Well, you’re 80% of the way there already.
Just hide under a stack of paperwork until they come by for the ISO20000 audit.
My heart goes out to you. I worked for a tech/customer support outsourcing company for a time, and for the first three years I worked there we were ISO9000 certified. When we transitioned from tech to customer service, ISO wasn’t so important to clients. There was a rumor in the company that we made the transition in order to save the money we spent to be ISO compliant, resulting in lower-paying clients and, of course, lower-paying jobs.
At any rate, I was a low-level team manager during two ISO 9000 inspections – it was a week of pure hell each time. We didn’t get any work done except procedure review during the entire week.
Good luck!
1.)ISO9000 may not be geared only toward manufacturing, but the guidelines and models we used in setting up our system definitely were. Where we used the original documentation, it was as clear as mud. It certainly would have been easier if we were turning out frammistats by the thousands instead of very few high-end units. When the documentayioon asks you about quality control and the like, it’s clear they’re looking at the kind of standards and traceability used in large-scale manufacturing.
2.) I haven’t done any ISO since 2000 (thank Og)
3.) ISO9000 may not be a quality standard, but it’s teribly concerbned about how you set and deal with quality standards and traceability. Most of the things given in the documentation would have been pointless in a business producing nothing but, say, mechanical designs.
As people like to say in here, bolding mine, although I have no idea why. 
Anyway, the standard has evolved to the point where only a handful of documents are absolutely mandatory. You must have these in place, and then sufficient documentation to control the processes that are key to your business. It makes a whole bunch of sense now and is more customer-focussed and relies on continuous improvement. It’s not so bad.
Our company wants to become ISO 9001 (I think that’s the one) compliant. I’ve tried to talk them out of it, they have no idea of the amount of paperwork involved. They just want to slap the “ISO Certified” symbol on their letterhead without regard for the poor schlubs who have to, you know, comply. I already have the honor of doing the documentation for a different QC system, and that’s not really part of my job description, I just do it because it’s too much paperwork for anybody else to bother with. And now they want to take on ISO paperwork. Maybe if they do, they’ll hire somebody to control both systems. It could be justified as a full time job (hell, more than full time) for somebody to do both, instead of me doing one out of the kindness of my heart. :rolleyes:
I hate paperwork.
Well, obviously you shouldn’t be doing it so you can slap the certificate on the wall. You should be doing it because having control over key processes is the right way to run a business. Of course my view may be a little slanted. 